I raised my eyebrow at him. “I thought it was mine.”
“And I thought you were going to share.” He took the straw to his lips and mocked my surprised face. “Besides, do you really think that you’re going to be able to drink this entire glass?”
“You’d be surprised at how much of this I can ingest,” I retorted. “And thank you by the way, I’ve been craving one all day.”
While I followed him out of the house, I reached out to take my root beer slushy back from his hands, but as soon as he saw me he took a quick side step and got away from my reach.
“Oliver!” I shrieked.
He smirked and siphoned an entire mouthful of our frozen drink. Within seconds he bent over wincing and I laughed at his pain.
“Serves you right,” I mocked. After taking my very sweet time to join him, I removed his baseball cap to put it on my head and hit his forehead with the palm of my hand.
“Thanks,” he coughed out.
“Mine,” I grumbled taking my glass of slush back.
“Can I at least have my baseball cap, back?” he responded with a deep sexy chortle.
“You can. So how’s the teaching going?” I asked as we crossed the gate of my mother’s backyard.
He didn’t answer but when I snuck a peek at him I noticed the strange expression on his face.
“What?”
“I––um––haven’t been to work since last week.”
“Oliver.” I bellowed.
“I know…but trust me when I tell you that I would have screwed it up. I’m starting Monday morning. I promise.”
“You better,” I huffed.
We both took a seat under the tree and looked out at the field, on the other side of my mother’s backyard in silence. When the wind blew, Oliver took the comforter out and laid it over our bodies. The night was dark, almost starless and by the lack of lights inside and around the house I figured my mother was probably out. From the corner of my eye, I watched him. Just like me, I could tell that there were a million things he wanted to say. I looked around and saw the branch he’d torn off the previous week and felt his eyes on me, but was unable to look at him, so I just stared at the branch and its shrivelled leaves.
“So…I’m a dad, huh?” he said, finally breaking the quietness.
“Yeah,” I whispered. I tore my eyes away from the ground and looked at him. “You’re a dad.”
He took my hand from under the comforter and brought it to his lips. The gesture made my heart hurt and flutter at the same time. It was confusing. I would have expected him to be angrier at me, God knew I deserved it. I brought our hands back under the comforter, and laid them over my bare stomach. The sound of his breathing got heavy and I looked at his pained features.
Lyvia gave a light kick, and Oliver smiled the most heartwarming smile I had ever seen.
“Does it hurt?”
I shook my head. “No. Well, sometimes when she decides to play soccer with my ribs it does, but other than that, no.”
I let him trace his fingers across my stomach and she kicked him again.
“I love her name,” he whispered.
I loved her name too. It was the perfect blend of our names just like Riley was. A tear escaped me and landed on the blanket. I looked up to see him watching me, with what seemed like a thousand questions in his eyes.
“She’s healthy,” I answered to his non-verbal question. “She has all of her fingers and toes. She’s just like you…she bugs the hell out of me, kicks me at the worst possible times, and never lets me sleep, but I love her more than life.” Fresh tears rolled down my cheeks as I tried to say all I could think of at the same time. He patiently waited and paid attention to every single one of my words. “She’s perfect Oliver. And I know we have a million things we need to talk about and even more I need to apologize for. I know you’re asking yourself how it’s possible, and I don’t know because I really was on the pill…but Lyvia really is yours. And I am so, so sorry I kept her from you.”
His jaw tensed and I noticed his Adam’s apple move as he swallowed.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” I admitted.
“I just don’t get it Abs. Why? Why not call me when you found out you were pregnant? Why not call me when you found out you lost Riley? I could––I could have been there for you.”
I tried to find a way to make him understand. It was hard since everything I was feeling was confusing, and all the words sounded wrong. I closed my eyes and exhaled.
***
“Why did you leave?” I asked my father.
Five days had passed since my mother had forced me to climb into his car and leave her house for the summer, and not once had I said a word. Not even a peep. I had to hand it to him, he had been a lot more patient than I would have expected him to be.
He looked at me curiously when I finally spoke. A small smile spread across his face, and his blue eyes lit up like mine used to when I was with Oliver.
“The truth?” he asked, and I nodded. “Because I didn’t want to give up on my dreams.”
“So this has nothing to do with Mom?”
He sighed. “I think that part of it does, but you can’t blame her for the choices I made. My relationship with your mother wasn’t really a healthy one at the time, Abby. She and I didn’t want the same things out of life and in the end we were together because of you.”
He looked forlorn as he watched the blue sky, and I could tell that the truth coming out was hurting him a lot more than he would have anticipated.
“I was in love with my work, kid. And your mother––well, she knew that I would never give it up. She gave me an ultimatum because she wanted you to have more than a shadow of a father.”
“So you just left, never looked back, never bothered to pick up the phone and check up on me, and all of it was to satisfy your own greedy, selfish needs?”
“I guess so, yes.”
“You guess so? You’re sitting here trying to make me believe that you chose to bail for my own benefit, but we both know that it’s a big fat lie. You chose this for you.” I stood. “You’re an asshole.”
The way Simon was watching me told me that he was expecting my reaction.
“Do you know how many nights I went to bed thinking that something was wrong with me? That I was unworthy or worthless? Has it even occurred to you that at some point in my life I would actually need a dad?”
He winced.
“If you didn’t want to be a father, Simon, you should have put a fucking condom on.”
He bowed his head ashamed.
“I have no grand-parents. No aunts, uncles, or cousins. I have no family,” I spat. “And all of it is because of you.”
I looked out at the lake thinking about Uncle Henry and Aunt Evy, and then I thought of Oliver and my heart hurt even more.
“Why come back now?” I asked. “Do you even regret leaving us or is this about you and your needs again?”
“Not being a part of your life doesn’t mean I didn’t care, Abby. And of course I regret not being there for you when you needed a dad. But by the point where the thought came to mind, I had to ask myself if I would be stepping back into your life for your benefit or my own, and in the end I came to the conclusion that you were just better off without me.”
“Then why come back?” I shouted, trying to understand.
“Just because I left, doesn’t mean that I don’t want you alive and healthy, Abbygail. I still care for you and I still want what’s best for you. You’re my daughter and no matter what, I love you.”
“Right.” I sniggered. “Love.”
I looked away and then I narrowed my eyes angrily at him.
“Do you want to know what my theory on love is, Simon?” I didn’t wait for his reply to answer. It felt good to finally speak my mind. “Love breaks hearts. Love causes pain. And love ruins lives. But do you know what your love didn’t give you the right to do? It didn’t give you the right to choose whether I was to hav
e a father in my life or not. That choice should have been mine to make. Not yours.”
***
“Simon.” It was the only word I could say, hoping he would understand.
“Abs?” Oliver answered. The pain in voice was relentless. “I’m not him.”
“I know.”
Oliver knew everything about me. He knew everything about my life because that’s what he was, my entire life. He’d been my best friend for as long as I could remember and as I looked at his broken-hearted eyes, I finally realized the extent of the pain I’d afflicted. The guy sitting beside me wasn’t my father, he was Henry’s son, and I knew that he would never hurt me in the way my father had. But most of all, I knew he would never hurt her.
“I––” I frowned at myself for being so selfish. “I thought I was protecting her.”
He turned to face me and with his free hand, he wiped my tears as they poured out of my eyes. Never saying a word, he pulled me closer to him and let the soft breeze rock us in silence.
I knew he understood.
Oliver
“Ugh, I have to pee.” Abby complained, sitting up straight.
“Then go.” I smirked.
“But that means I have to walk all the way back home, and I’m really, really comfortable right now.”
“Why don’t you just go inside your mom’s house?”
“I’d still have to move, Oliver,” she replied while I laughed at her silliness. “Plus, I didn’t bring my keys to her house.”
“Okay, then just go pee behind the bush. I promise I won’t look.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “I’m not peeing behind a bush, Oliver.”
“I know,” I teased, “but it’s getting pretty late and I should get back before Laney starts asking me a gazillion questions.”
She stood-up from the bench and I couldn’t believe how beautiful she was. Her curves were perfect, and the thought that I was the one that made her body the way it was made me want to own and protect every inch of her. I grabbed our comforter and wrapped it around her shivering body. When I looked up at her, her soft eyes were watching me.
“I’m sorry I left,” I whispered.
“Don’t be.”
“Abby, I left because I was angry and the truth is I should have stayed so we could have talked about this.”
“Oliver,” she replied furrowing her eyebrows together. She took my hands in hers and looked at them for what seemed like an eternity before saying anything. “We suck at talking.”
I laughed so hard. Although everything she said was the truth, it wasn’t the response I was expecting from her.
“We weren’t always like this. I mean…” She cocked her head to the side. “You used to let me get away with everything.”
She stopped talking and closed her eyes. As I listened to her unsteady breathing, I leaned my head against hers and inhaled the presence of the girl that I had missed so much. The girl whose heart I had managed to shatter more than once and there she was again, ready to forgive me as I was to forgive her.
I had no idea what the next step was going to be, but the one thing I did know was that I didn’t want us to be apart anymore. I wanted her to be mine. I wanted us to be a family.
Chapter 18
Oliver
“So what’s the plan now?” Laney asked me as we ate our pancakes at Baker’s Cafe. I’d been the emergency contact for work the entire weekend and finally had a minute to myself, so I asked Laney to join me at the restaurant closest to her work place for her lunch break.
“The plan now is that you tell me about what happened between you and Justin.”
She groaned. “I don’t want to talk about it, Oliver.”
“I’m not giving you much of a choice. We agreed that once I contacted Abbygail, you would tell me about Justin. I had my talk with her, it’s your turn.”
“You didn’t want to contact Abby, Oliver. In fact if it wasn’t for your boss sending you to Carrington over a week ago you wouldn’t have seen her at all. And if it wasn’t for me contacting Stephan, you’d still be at home thinking about her.”
I ate my food and watched her in silence until she decided to crack.
“Fine. He cheated on me, okay? Are you happy now?”
“Why would I be happy that Justin cheated on you?” I frowned.
“I don’t know what got into him…” Tears build up into her hazel eyes. Laney wasn’t a crier and I could tell how difficult it was for her to remain impassive. “On our way home from our week vacation in Cuba, we got into an argument. When we got home there was a message from Kayden on our answering machine. He was asking us if we wanted to go on a ski trip to Whistler. I couldn’t go because of work, but I told Justin to go. Two days later Kayden calls me freaking out, asking me what the hell was going on between us. When I told him I had no idea what he was talking about he said that Justin hooked up with some red head and he hadn’t seen him since the previous night.”
My jaw tensed.
“I told him not to tell anyone and that I’d figure it out when they came back, but I couldn’t do it. Two weeks after he came back, I told him to pick his shit up and go to his mom’s place until I found somewhere else to live.”
“Lane––”
“I held on until you left. I didn’t want to tell you because I was afraid you’d change your mind about going after Abby. But when you were gone…it felt like I had nothing left, so I came here. Four years,” she whispered wiping the angry tears that managed to escape her eyes. “Four years out the fucking door like what we had was nothing, and I don’t even know why.”
“I’m sorry,” I replied stunned and angry with Justin. Not that it mattered, but I couldn’t understand what had gotten into him either. From last I heard, he was still head over heels in love with Laney.
“He’s a dick. You don’t need to be sorry for him. Besides,” she looked at me with a shy smile, “I kind of have an eye for another guy now.”
I cocked an eyebrow curiously.
“If I tell you, do you promise not to freak out?”
“Why would I freak out? You know that I don’t interfere in your love interests.”
“You haven’t had the chance to interfere because I’ve been with the same guy for years. And you might freak out because it’s someone you know.”
“Spill,” I answered curiously. “Who’s the guy?
“Stephan.”
“He’s in a relationship, Lane.”
She shook her head. “If you mean that Kylie girl, I don’t think they’re together anymore. How is it that you don’t know these things? You’re a crappy friend, Oliver Langton.”
Don’t I know it…
“So now that everything about our personal lives is on the table, spit it out. What’s your plan with Abbygail?”
“I don’t know what the next step with Abby is,” I admitted. I grabbed my phone to text her. The urge to contact her had been gnawing at me all weekend, but I was just so busy with work that I never got the chance to even try.
DarkHaze: How’s Lyvia today?
“What do you mean you don’t know?” Laney asked me. “You’re just going to let her go?”
BlackOrchid: Lyvia is doing great. She kept me up all night…I told you she’s like her father. ☺
I smiled.
DarkHaze: And how is Lyvia’s mom today?
I looked at my best friend frowning at me. “Let her go? Are you crazy? No. I just need to figure out a way to show her that she can trust me, again.”
“I doubt you’ll have much trouble with that. When I saw her at the hospital she didn’t look as mad as you’d think she would be. How did she take your unexpected visit Friday night?”
“Surprisingly well.”
BlackOrchid: Lyvia’s mom is
“Are you going to elaborate more?”
I looked at the message and waited for her to complete her response, but it didn’t come.
“What?” Laney asked, noticing that I wasn’t
paying attention to her anymore.
“Nothing.”
“Yes, because that totally looks like your ‘everything is fine’ face. I think you forget that I can read you like a book when it comes to her.”
I panicked and dialed Abby’s number.
“Hello?” her voice wavered.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. It’s just––there’s a willow tree growing in my mom’s backyard.”
I smiled, relief flooding my tensed body.
God, this pregnancy thing is going to drive me nuts.
“I know. I saw it last week.”
“A willow tree. A baby willow tree, Oliver. How is that even possible? We’ve tried this for years and it never worked.”
“I know.”
“Then how?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Maybe instead of blowing us a breeze Riley decided to give us a new tree. Maybe it’s her way of showing us that she’s here, or maybe it’s her way to grow-up with her little sister.”
“You think Riley’s a girl?” she asked curiously, to what I thought her answer would have been ‘you went to the cemetery?’
“I do, although I’m not quite sure why.”
“I do too.” There was a mixture of sadness and surprise in her voice.
“Are you busy tonight?”
“No.”
“I should be able to transfer the emergency contact to my partner by five this evening. I’ll be home by six. Tell your mom we’re coming over for dinner.”
“We are?” she questioned. “Is this you asking me out on a cheap date to my mom’s house or something?
I chortled. “I don’t know, Abbygail, but I think the question you should be asking yourself is: do you want this to be a date?”
“Can I wear sweatpants?”
I laughed. “You can wear whatever you want.”
“Okay cool. See you tonight.”
I hung up just remembering that Laney was still with me. “Sorry.”
Her lips turned up into a happy smile and she stood to kiss my cheek. “I need to get back to work, breakfast is on you.”
“See you later.” I said watching her leave.
She let out a sarcastic smirk and winked at me. “No you won’t.”
Transcending Regrets (No Regrets book 3) Page 11