by Sabre Rose
Tyler left her side and came to stand by me, wrapping his arm around my shoulder. “Warm enough?” he asked.
I smiled and nodded, huddling into his side. Tyler was acting as though nothing was wrong, that our conversation wasn’t on replay in his mind but he couldn’t quite pull it off. His arm was too tense around my shoulders. His actions too stilted.
“Have you told him?” Tyler asked, looking over my head at his mother.
“Who?” she asked, feigning ignorance. But you could tell by the tightness in the set of her chin, she knew exactly who.
“Hamish.”
“No,” Diana shifted a step away. “I thought I would leave that to you. I know I’ve interfered enough in your life for someone who hasn’t been present for most of it. I’d like to change that.”
Tyler’s jaw rocked. “Thanks.”
The bell sounded, the boys walked onto the pitch and the batsman knocked his bat against the ground, ready for the first ball to be bowled. Tyler released me, stepping closer to the sideline, his eyes locked on Dante.
24
LAUREN
The only place we could go for dinner in the small town was the local pub. As soon as we walked in, curious eyes slid in our direction from over handles of beer. It was a place for the locals. Strangers didn’t usually walk in and ask for a table. The waitress frowned a little and flicked her hand in the direction of a few empty tables in the corner of the room. She smiled at Dante, nodding in acknowledgement and simply asked, “Who are these two?” without acknowledging Tyler or me at all. The rest of the pub twisted towards us. The chatter fell silent.
Dante straightened his stance. “This is my father, Tyler Thornton and his partner Lauren,” he said proudly. It was as though when Tyler or Dante uttered the words father or son, they stood a little taller, smiled a little harder.
“You’re the father, huh?” the waitress said, grabbing a plastic covered menu from the stack on the bar. “Fancy that.”
Little more was said and it amazed me that the town was so willing to accept Dante’s announcement with such few details, but heads nodded, a few whispered words were exchanged and then mouths dipped back to their drinks and the chatter started again.
We followed the waitress over to one of the empty tables and pulled out the chairs as she tossed the menus onto the stained tablecloth. “I’ll be back to take your orders later,” she said, then turning to Dante, she added, “Good game,” and cuffed him over the head.
“So,” Dante sat down and Tyler and I followed suit, “when do I get to see where you live? When do I get to meet my uncles?”
Tyler laughed, outwardly pleased with Dante’s eagerness to be part of his life. “I guess we will need to discuss that with your mother.”
Dante’s shoulders slumped a little. “Great,” he muttered.
“This will all be a bit of a shock for her.” Tyler bumped his elbow into Dante’s. “She’ll need a while to adjust to things. She’s had you all to herself for so long, having me around is going to be hard.”
The waitress came back without giving us time to even look over the menu, so we echoed Dante’s order for the hamburger.
“Do you two live together? Will I get to come and stay? I finish school in a couple of weeks for the Christmas holidays, maybe I could come and stay then. Maybe I could come and spend Christmas with you guys?”
“We’d like that,” I replied, and Tyler looked over at me, a question playing in his eyes. I didn’t tell Dante that we didn’t live together. I didn’t tell him that we’d only just got started dating again, that we were working through things, that Tyler had asked me to marry him and I said no.
Hamburgers and fries were dumped on the table before us. This waitress wasn’t capable of simply placing something down. Plates were dumped. Menus were tossed. Drinks were splashed.
“So, are you two, like, serious?” Dante asked, taking a large bite of his burger.
“Yes,” Tyler and I replied at the same time. Dante lifted a single eyebrow, a trait I now associated solely with Thornton men, and flicked his eyes between us.
“Okay,” he said slowly around his mouthful of food. “So when are you guys heading back to the city?” He swallowed almost painfully. “Not that I want you to go,” he added. “It’s just that I’ve got this cricket game on Monday, it’s a school thing, we play the team from the next town over every year and it’s sort of a big deal, the last game of the year and all that.”
“I’d love to watch. I’m pretty sure I should be able to juggle a few things around at work in order to stay,” Tyler replied. “Lauren?”
“Sadie and I have a meeting with a client on Monday.” I poked at my burger. “I don’t think I can.”
“S’all good,” Dante said, although his shoulders slumped and his hair flopped over his eyes a little. He took another bite of his burger just as the waitress brought a bottle of tomato sauce to the table.
“I forgot,” was all she said.
I glanced out the window and sure enough, rain splattered onto the glass. It hadn’t stopped all day. “Maybe I could call Sadie…”
Tyler shook his head. “No, you need to get back for that meeting. I will stay on and you can take the car back. Maybe Diana can give me a ride home, or I could hire a rental.”
Dante grinned again, pieces of burger showing in his teeth. “You would do that?”
“Of course. I’d love to watch your game and as long as I can shift a few meetings around at work, it will be fine.” Pushing back from the table, Tyler’s chair scraped loudly on the floor. “I’ll go make some phone calls now. Lauren, you’d be okay with driving home on your own?” But he didn’t wait for my reply. He lifted his phone to his ear and walked away.
I rolled my eyes and gave Dante a teasing grin. “I’m pretty sure I can manage to drive a car.”
Dante tore another mouthful off his burger. Once he was done chewing, he nodded to where I hadn’t even started mine. “Don’t you like it?”
Hesitantly I picked up the burger and took a mouthful. It tasted a lot better than it looked. “Not bad,” I mumbled, my hand coming to my mouth when some of the burger threatened to spill out.
Dante let out a loud laugh. “Don’t lie. The food here is terrible. People only really come here to drink. They only offer food to get the alcohol license.”
I placed the burger back down on the plate and swallowed the remainder of the bite I took. “Yeah,” I replied. “It’s not that good.”
“It’s shit,” Dante said.
I narrowed my eyes a little at his language and then shrugged. “Okay, it’s shit.”
“So tell me what he’s like. You know. For real like.”
“For real?” I repeated.
“No bullshit, you know?”
I sat back in my chair. “Your father is wonderful, Dante, no bullshit. He works really hard and takes pride in it. He’s kind, always helping people out when he can, even if he tries to hide it, but he’s also strong and determined, always standing up for what he believes in, which, despite the crap he’s had thrown at him, is his family. He loves his family, even his crappy father.”
“Hamish, right?” Dante had memorised all the names of the members of the Thornton family like he was studying for a test. “And he’s married to Billie?”
“That’s the one.”
“Not sure if I want to meet him. I overheard Diana and Mum talking. I know he’s the one who paid Mum to keep quiet about me.”
“I guess he thought he was doing what was right. He didn’t know how much it would mean to Tyler to know he had a son.”
“You like him?” The last of Dante’s hamburger was shoved into his mouth.
I looked at him and screwed up my nose. “Honestly,” I said, leaning forward. “Not really. He’s a pompous arse, but he is Tyler’s father, so I like him simply because he made Tyler. He’s just had another child and I think it’s softened him a bit, so who knows? Maybe he’s changed.”
Dante laugh
ed and slapped the table. “Another kid?”
“A wee boy called Oliver.”
“So I have an uncle that’s a baby.”
I let a grin spread across my face. “It’s a rather messed up family.”
“I’m good with that. Mum’s family aren’t around anymore. Diana is all we’ve got. I like the fact that I’ve got more people now, you know? Even if they are a little messed up.”
I thought of my own mother, her strictness, her bluntness. “I think most families are.”
* * *
We dropped Dante home to a slightly annoyed Claudia who complained about the lateness, but she gave me the smallest of smiles, and I hoped it was a sign that maybe one day we could be friends. Probably not soon, but hopefully, once she realised I was here to stay, that I would be a part of Dante’s life, it might give us the chance to develop some sort of rapport. If I was here to stay. Tyler still hadn’t brought up our conversation. Neither had I.
The following day was spent at Diana’s house. She cooked us a simple lunch, taking pride in the vegetables from her garden, and again, I struggled with the thought that this woman was ever married to Hamish Thornton.
It wasn’t until late in the afternoon that I loaded my bag into the boot of Tyler’s car and kissed him goodbye. He kissed me back but it was as though his lips were cold, even though they weren’t.
Diana had agreed to drive him home late Monday. I think that secretly she was thrilled, although she did her best to remain casual when Tyler asked her.
The sun was low in the sky as I started the trip home. I turned the volume up and sang until my throat began to ache. I tried not to worry. I tried to push it out of my mind, but the pain and confusion in Tyler’s eyes when I uttered the word ‘no’ kept repeating. I just hoped he would understand. The thought of losing him again made me almost sick to my stomach, but I couldn’t race into something merely because he wanted me to.
I slowed down as I reached the stretch of road that ran around the side of the lake. It twisted and turned so I pushed down the volume, needing the quiet as I concentrated on manoeuvring Tyler’s car around the tight bends. By now the sun had set and my headlights cut across the road. Ahead of me, a car was twisting its way towards me, the beams of its lights on high, blinding me each time it caught in my vision.
I slowed down further, muttering under my breath at the idiot on the road. I was grateful I was on the inside curve, knowing that there was no way the approaching car could push me into the lake. The speed of the car was erratic, fast in the straights and then slowing down with each corner. When it rounded the bend in front of me I cursed as the headlights blinded me. Everything was bathed in light. Tyres squealed on the road. My body was thrown to the side, my head hitting the glass of the window. Pain enveloped my body.
25
TYLER
I had a son. I was a father. The words still sounded strange to me even if they were only rattling around in my head, rather than being spoken. Dante was everything I wanted in a son I never knew I had. My heart swelled with pride from just looking at him. He was a good kid. One to be proud of even if I hadn’t had anything to do with his upbringing. That was going to change. Now that I knew about him, I would never let him go.
I guess that’s what made me utter those words to Lauren. It was foolish. I know that now. I knew it then. I was overwhelmed with delirium, dizzy with the emotions racing through me and I needed somewhere for them to spill.
Still, I never expected her to say no.
I wanted Lauren. I wanted more than anything to make her my wife, declare to the world that she was mine. But the moment that flash of panic darted across her eyes, the moment she uttered that word ‘no’, my heart broke. For an instant, I thought I’d lost her again. My high plummeted to a low within an instant, and I cursed myself.
It was only once she walked away, once I’d had time to think of what I’d asked, of how I’d asked it, of when I’d asked it, that I realised Lauren wasn’t saying no to me. She was saying no to marriage. She’d already refused to move in with me again so quickly, what the fuck was I doing asking her to marry me?
Even though I knew all this, I still felt like shit.
I wanted to suck the words back into my mouth, as though it were possible to undo them. But I couldn’t. And now I had to live with the fact that I had asked and she had refused. It annoyed me that my usually rational thought process was completely and confusingly irrational in regards to Lauren.
My jealousy of her past was gone. I knew that I just needed time to prove it to her. I would never treat her the way I had again. I would never speak to her like that. I almost lost her because of it. And now, more than ever, I knew I needed her in my life.
She was my life.
Lauren and Dante.
We would be a family one day.
In my mind, we already were. I just needed to convince her.
Walking back into the motel room that seemed so much smaller now that Lauren wasn’t in it, I pulled the bottle of whiskey that I had bought from the pub out of its paper bag and poured some into the only thing I could find. A coffee cup. It would do the job.
Flicking the television on, I jumped onto the bed, pushing at the heel of one shoe with the toe of the other, letting them fall onto the floor. My eyes fell to where they had dropped. I sighed and leaned over the edge of the bed to arrange them tidily.
I must have drifted off at some stage as I woke to my phone ringing. The room was dark, lit only by the TV screen and Lauren’s face as it illuminated the screen of my phone. “Hey you,” I greeted her, doing my best to keep my voice light, happy, as though her refusal hadn’t cut my heart into a million little pieces.
“Hello, is this Tyler?” a strange voice replied. It was noisy in the background. The lady, whoever she was, was shouting over the roar of something but I couldn’t make out what.
I sat up in the bed. “Tyler Thornton.” I cleared my throat. “Who is this? Why are you on Lauren’s phone?”
“Tyler, your number was in Lauren’s phone as her emergency contact. This is Katie and I’m a paramedic. Lauren has had an accident and we are currently on our way to the city hospital.”
Panic dropped like rocks in my stomach. I found myself on my feet. “What?” I shouted down the phone, matching her volume. “Is she okay? Is she hurt?”
“She’s unconscious at the moment and has sustained some injuries to her left side. I would suggest you make your way to the hospital as soon as possible. We should be arriving there in about half an hour.”
The roar in the background suddenly became clear. It was the roar of an engine and the whack of helicopter blades.
“Is she okay?” I shouted again.
“At this stage, we believe the only injuries she has are to her side. We will know more once we reach the hospital. Have you got some way of getting there? Where are you currently situated?” A beep sounded in the background and the woman’s voice became muffled.
I let the phone slip through my fingers as I dove into action. Tearing through the room, another wave of panic washed over me when I couldn’t find my shoes. It was such a small thing. Inconsequential. But at the time it seemed important. It was like my brain refused to single in on the most important information. Lauren was hurt, and instead, I chose to focus on the fact that I couldn’t find my shoes.
“Fuck!” I yelled into the empty room, folding over on myself as the pain of dread gripped my stomach. “Fuck!”
The whiskey bottle beside the bed caught my eye. I had only had a couple of drinks earlier and I was tempted to throw the rest down my throat in an effort to remove this feeling within. This panic. This dread. This terror.
I shook it off and reached down to collect my phone. “Hello?” I said into it, but the woman, whoever she was, was gone. My hands shook as I scrolled through my contacts, pressing on the number once it came into view.
It rung once, twice, three times. I started praying. “Please pick up. Please pick up,”
I muttered until finally, I heard a tired “Hello?” on the other end of the line.
“Mum,” I said, my throat growing tight. “Lauren’s had an accident. She’s been hurt. I need to get to her. I need—”
“I’m on my way,” Diana replied. “Gather your things, Tyler. Do you hear me? Collect your stuff and I will be there soon.”
“Thank you,” I breathed.
It felt like forever before I saw the flash of her headlights approaching. Images kept flashing through my mind. Lauren lying on the ground, a wound on her head, blood creeping out onto the dirt. Her face twisted in terror as she plummeted off the road. Some maniac crashing into her and her body flying through the windscreen. I had packed my bags, throwing clothes and toiletries in without even comprehending what was going into my bag. For all I knew, I had half the hotel’s belongings in there.
Opening the door before the car had even rolled to a stop, I jumped into the passenger’s seat and tossed my bag over the back.
“How is she?” Diana asked.
“I don’t know.” I let out a breath of air, pushing away the hair that fell in my eyes. “I tried calling her phone again but no one answered.”
Diana reached over and patted my knee. Her hand felt strange, unfamiliar, but it did lend some comfort. “She’ll be okay, Tyler.”
I prayed that she was right. I no longer cared that she had said no. I no longer cared about anything other than if she was okay.
Diana kept talking to me for most of the journey but I didn’t remember what she said. I must have registered her conversation on some level though, as I found myself replying to questions, though I don’t know what my answers were. I only heard my voice as some sort of muffled drone in the background.
When we started around the road that hugged the edge of the lake, my heart twisted in my chest. Up ahead were lights. Flashing lights. My car, the one that Lauren had been driving, was ploughed into the side of the road. Rocks above had crashed into the side of the car, pushing over to where Lauren would have been sitting.