She took in a deep breath and replied softly, “I’d have to leave.”
Anger began to seep through me unlike I’d ever felt before. I dropped my hands from her shoulders and I backed up a step. “Leave? Why?”
“Well, my publisher wants me to come back to their office and help them get things in order so the distribution can happen. I’d have to approve some things and-... “
Blinding rage filled my mind. I felt my bear take complete control over me. I let out a loud growl and turned on my heel, running my hands through my hair to avoid breaking anything. Was all of this just a ruse to get her story? Were Addy and I just an obstacle? No. Daisy wouldn’t do that to me.
In my heart, I wanted to believe that there was more to this, but I was so angry with her. However, I wasn’t sure if it was me that was angry or my bear. Either way, how could she just leave? My chest rumbled with fury at the possibility. I clutched the edge of the table hard, feeling the wood splinter beneath my palms. I was getting angrier by the second, and I couldn’t control it.
“So, you’re just going to take off? You got your book and now it’s back to the big city?” I kept my back to her as I said this.
“No! That’s not what’s happening at all!” She shouted in exasperation.
When I felt her touch a hand to my shoulder, I yanked it out of reach and turned back to face her. All of my control slipped away, and I shot her a seething glare. I advanced on her; my finger pointed at her accusingly. “That’s all we were to you wasn’t it? A story? You get what you want then you leave us in the dust?”
Tears filled her eyes. “No! You’re jumping to conclusions, Bastian! Just let me explain what I plan to do and you’ll-“
I didn’t believe her. I thought she loved me. I thought she loved Addy. But we were just a story. She wanted to leave us, because she got exactly what she wanted. And I’d had enough of the lies.
“No!” I interrupted her, slashing my hand through the air dismissively. “I don’t want to hear it, Daisy. I thought I knew you better than this. I trusted you with my secret and Addy’s. And you just used that secret to make your story better. Hell, you used my face for the fucking cover! How could I have been so blind?” I threw my hands in the air then slammed them down on the table against the wall. My chest heaved as I leaned against it, refusing to look at her. How could I when she tore my heart from my chest.
It was hard enough losing Evelyn, but losing Daisy was killing me inside. And my bear was furious at her betrayal. At this point, I didn’t care who was taking control in this situation.
“How could you say that?” she asked in a shaky voice. “You do know me! You two aren’t just a story to me!” She pleaded.
She reached for me again as her tears fell harder. Yet again, I yanked my arm free from her grasp and turned my face away from her. I just wanted her gone. If she wanted to leave, then she needed to just leave. I couldn’t take this. “Get out,” I demanded coldly, doing my best to calm my bear down. “You aren’t the person you said you were. Just... get the hell out.”
“Please, Bastian. Just let me explain. If my love means anything to you, you’ll let me.” She begged in a quivering voice.
“Your love means nothing to me if this is what you do with it. Get out and don’t come back.” I gave a hint of warning in my tone as it rumbled out, showing her a little of my bear beneath of surface.
My blood was on fire, but my heart was ice. I felt numb inside from the pain, yet on the verge of destroying this room. I may have hated her for doing this to me and to Addy, but I didn’t want her to get hurt either. I just wanted her gone.
Daisy
I backed away slowly. I couldn’t wrap my head around his behavior. If he truly loved me, he’d never had said those things to me. He’d give me a moment to tell him everything I wanted to. But now, that chance was gone. His words had cut into me like a knife. He couldn’t take back the hurt he’d just caused me. His love for me was clearly nowhere near as strong as mine was for him. And I could only hope one day he would look back on this moment and realize it was he who wasn’t the one being true.
But I loved him enough to understand I had to let him go. If my love wasn’t enough, then there was no reason left to stay.
I turned and walked to the open door, but stopped and said, “It’s you who isn’t who you said you were, Bastian. Not me. I hope someday you’ll learn to let someone love you again. You may not accept that my love was real, but I never once doubted yours for me until this moment... Tell Addy I’m sorry… Goodbye, Bastian.”
With my heart shattered and my soul screaming for me to fight harder, I walked out. I couldn’t fight for him if he wouldn’t let me.
What was the use of fighting anyways if he wouldn’t fight for me?
I cried myself to sleep that night after calling my publisher to let her know I’d be headed to the airport in the morning. I couldn’t bare staying here so close to him if he was done with me. I prayed that he’d come to his senses and bang on the door yelling that he’d made a mistake and was sorry.
But he never did.
Aunt Em called me twice before coming by and doing that instead. My hope had sparked only to be crushed the moment I opened the door and saw it was only her. I bawled my eyes out into her shoulder. She did her best to console me, but it was pointless. I begged her to pick me up before the sun rose tomorrow morning and take me to the airport. She grudgingly agreed. After suffering the disappointment of it only being her, I gave up on that hope he’d come and locked myself in my room. I wasn’t sure I’d accept his apology if he did end up coming that night at this point.
He didn’t deserve my forgiveness for the awful things he said, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t willing to forgive him anyway if he would just see that he’d been wrong.
My stomach rolled with the pain of his rejection and dismissal. I only left my room to grab something to eat, but just threw up any bit I managed to get down and gave up trying. Instead, I packed my things and laid in my bed, letting the echoes of my cries bounce back at me.
I didn’t call my dad or Hannah, because telling them what happened would make it real. It would be the nail on the head that drove it home. I didn’t want to accept Bastian’s words. I didn’t want to imagine the look on Addy’s face when she realized I was gone in the morning. I would be angry at Bastian for a long time for taking saying goodbye to her away from me. She may be his daughter, but I loved her as much as I loved him. And she’d never know that. She’d think I’d abandoned her just as Bastian thought I was.
How could this have gone so wrong? I asked myself over and over as I struggled to sleep. But sleep was not in the cards for me. Only pain and loneliness.
I stayed awake the whole night, staring at the ceiling and repeating our conversation over and over. I wish I had started out that I wasn’t going to go, but there was no talking to him now, or taking back the way I had said it. After picking up my phone several times to call him, only to change my mind, I grew angry with myself for lacking the guts to do it. In one bout of anger, I threw my phone against the wall and shattered the screen.
“Fuck!” I yelled as I held up the broken pieces. I couldn’t believe I’d just smashed my phone. That was just what I needed. I threw the broken pieces into the trash bin and threw myself onto my bed, praying sleep would take me. It didn’t.
When light broke through my window, I forced myself up from my bed and changed clothes. After quickly washing my face, I waited by the front door for Auntie Em to take me to the airport.
She arrived right on time, giving me a pitying look as I slid into her jeep. I gazed back longingly at Bastian’s cabin as we pulled away into the early dawn. It hurt seeing it fade in the background as we drove, and didn’t get any easier to watch the town disappear behind us as we took the road up and away. Auntie Em tried multiple times to get me to talk about what happened, but all I could say was that it was over, and I wanted to go home. The home part was a lie. I didn’t want to leave, but I coul
dn’t stay either no matter how much I thought of this place as home. Bastian made sure of that.
God, it all hurt so bad.
I gave Auntie Em a long hug and a kiss on the cheek when she got out of the car to help me with my luggage. She grabbed my chin gently between her fingers, making me look at her. Her facial expression was sad; and desperate.
“You are always welcome back, Daisy Mae. I know you probably won’t want to come back by the looks of you, but my door is always open. I don’t know what happened, and I won’t ask. But, I can guess. Don’t close your heart off, sunshine. Love can be toxic and cruel, but it can also be forgiving. You remember that.”
I nodded as the tears began to well in my eyes. I gave her one last hug and grabbed my luggage. The flights home would be long and grueling, and I didn’t look forward to any of it. The more miles I put between myself and here, the better it would be.
If only I could convince my heart of those words.
I’d been home for four weeks, and nothing seemed to feel right anymore.
Hannah was my rock through it all. It took me days to finally gather my thoughts and tell her what happened. However, it took forever for me to complete the story since I couldn’t help crying every time I tried. I even told her what he truly was. She was skeptical and pretty much thought I was losing my mind when I told her. But in the end, she believed me. She knew I would never make up such a story. Especially with how badly Bastian’s reaction had hurt me.
I was hurt when Matthew cheated on me. But the pain of what Bastian had done exceeded that tenfold. I thought I knew emotional pain. I was wrong.
I ended up leaving my publishing company like I’d planned; even though Bastian and Addy weren’t in my life anymore. I was thrilled for the opportunity they’d given me, but after everything that happened, it didn’t feel right using them to publish my book. Instead, I published it myself. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be. It felt right to do it this way. This book had started out as my next big venture. Now however, it was more than that. I wanted to publish it for me and for Bastian. Not for a hefty paycheck and fame. This story was more to me than that. So, I changed it. It was our story. The whole truth of it, yet the ending was completely different than what was actually happening. I kept the cover as the picture of his face. I did it in hopes that if he saw it and read it, he would see that even though he pushed me out of his life, I would never stop loving him or Addy.
Even if I wasn’t their world anymore, they were still mine.
Because of that, my ending in the book was far happier than the one I was living. We ended up together in that one. Not apart.
Hannah supplied copious amounts of wine and chocolate through those first few days when I returned, but I couldn’t bring myself to drink this away. I did, however, stuff my face with so much chocolate I thought I’d go into a sugar coma. It was all I seemed to really eat since getting home. Home, however, felt pretty damn empty.
I barely even came out of my room on Christmas. Hannah tried to entice me with the promise of cheery holiday movies and sugar cookies; but I just couldn’t cope.
After my dad learned what happened, he told me to come visit him for a few days and get my mind off it. I didn’t really want to go back to Pennsylvania, but the idea of seeing my dad and hugging him felt really nice. I owed it to him for not coming for Christmas, anyway. I was always there for the holidays.
A few days before my flight was to leave, everything went haywire with me, and only seemed to get worse as the days progressed.
I constantly felt sick to my stomach. My sense of smell seemed to have been dulled while in Canada, because Chicago’s smells were killing me. They’d been bad when we first got back, but now they were so much worse. Maybe things just smelled better there compared to the smoggy city, and I just realized it after being away. The gas from the cars and the aroma that wafted from the surrounding restaurants were so putrid to me, I could no longer stand having my windows open in the apartment like I had before. My favorite foods even started tasting strange to me to the point I stopped eating them. Bye, bye lasagna.
Even Hannah started to notice my aversion to things.
“You have stopped eating some of your favorite foods. I can’t make tea. You can’t walk outside without gagging at the smell of cars. What the hell gives?” She asked as we sat at the kitchen island sipping our morning coffee.
“I don’t know. Maybe I just got used to everything there,” I shrugged it off and went back to reading the morning newspaper.
“Has it been like this since what happened with…” she paused when she saw the look I shot at her for almost saying his name. We didn’t say his name out loud in this apartment. “That one guy…” she finished with instead as she looked down sheepishly at her coffee.
“Yeah. I was feeling sick a bit before that, but it got worse when I got home. I guess I just forgot how bad Chicago smelled after all the clean air there.” Why was she asking so many questions?
Suddenly, her hands slapped down on the island. “Oh. My. God. I cannot believe I didn’t see this before!” She exclaimed in a shocked voice.
I raised a brow at her wide-eyed expression. “What?”
“You don’t think…”
I dropped the newspaper down in exasperation. “Oh, my goodness what is it? Spit it out!”
Her eyes seemed to grow wider and her mouth floundered open. She leaned in and whispered words that had me crumbling in my seat.
“Are you pregnant?”
It was my turn to gawk.
My mind started to go a million miles a minute. Was that what was wrong with me? Was it possible?
I ran through my collection of memories of my times with Bastian. It hurt like crazy to think about all the times we were intimate in such vivid detail, but it was necessary.
I finally stopped on one memory in particular. One of the last times we were together we hadn’t used protection because we were in the heat of the moment. It had been in his work shed on one of the tables. I never cared where it happened with him. I just wanted him that badly.
Pain shot through my chest with the force of a hammer as I thought back to the loving way his hands slid across my skin. The way every kiss, caress, and whispered word made me feel so unbelievably loved that I thought we’d be forever. And now it was all gone. I’d done well not thinking about these moments since being back. Now it was like opening a wound up and watching myself bleed.
“There was one time. Six weeks ago. We didn’t use anything…” I whispered to her as I began to cry. I didn’t want to believe that I could be pregnant. But I’d been so blinded by the pain, I never stopped to think this had happened.
“Shit… I’m so sorry, Daisy,” she said as she came to my side and hugged me tightly to her. “Let’s take a test to make sure. I have one left over after a scare I had four months ago.” She walked quickly to the bathroom and rummaged around before coming back with a single test. “You could just have a bad bug, you know?” She supplied to try and comfort me when she handed it over. But we both knew that that wasn’t the problem.
I nodded my head and put my face into my hands. I cried my heart out at the fact that I would have to face Bastian again if I was pregnant. He had a right to know. Especially since what he was could easily pass to our baby. I was in no position to take care of a baby polar bear shifter on my own. I didn’t know the first thing on how to handle raising a shifter. To face him though, would mean opening up to all the hurt of the fact that he didn’t love me like I loved him. That this baby would make him feel trapped.
I thought things couldn’t get any worse. Yet again, I was sorely mistaken.
I walked hesitantly into the bathroom and unwrapped the test. My heart hammered rapidly as I sat down and took it.
When I was certain I did it right, I snapped the cap on the end and set it down the bathroom sink. I could hear Hannah pacing on the other side of the door as we waited for the test to happen. I threw some water on my
face and looked glumly at my reflection. There were thick bags under my eyes and my skin looked sallow and dim.
I shut my eyes and took a deep breath before grabbing the test.
I counted down. Three. Two. One… I opened my eyes and gazed down.
Two pink lines greeted me, and I broke down completely.
Hannah rushed in and grabbed me just before I dropped to the floor. She followed me down, holding onto me for dear life as I cried for what this would mean for me.
I loved this baby without a doubt in my mind. But, I feared for what our life would be like if it’s father turned us away. I knew deep down Bastian was a good man. I just wasn’t sure if he would want us.
“I’ve got you, Daisy Mae. We will figure this out. I promise you.”
I knew she meant that and would stop at nothing to help me through this. I just didn’t believe it was possible as my world crumpled.
Nineteen
Bastian
She was gone and it was all my fault.
I regretted the things I said to her as I said them. I was just so hurt and angry at the idea that she had used me and Addy for her story, that I didn’t even think about the impact my words would have. I would’ve rather hurt her than face the thought that I was being abandoned by her. That she would leave me like my wife left me.
Only Evelyn hadn’t left. She hadn’t had a choice. She was taken, and I had to accept that. I couldn’t accept this.
When Daisy said she had to leave, my bear took over, and I lost it. She had a choice. And she chose to leave us. My bear didn’t accept that and flew into a rage, taking over every rational thought I had.
Why would our mate leave us? He would make me question over and over as she pleaded to be heard. He wouldn’t allow her to get a word in after feeling betrayal. Then again, I couldn’t blame this solely on my bear. He was me just a more primal version at the back of my mind. And I let him take over instead of fighting my own battle. I let him chase her away and didn’t have the guts to go and take back everything I said.
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