Decline (Declan Reede: The Untold Story #1)

by Michelle Irwin

  A big part of me wanted to chase after them, to make Alyssa understand that I wasn’t going anywhere. Another part though, the small part I was trying to silence—the part that wanted to run from Alyssa and her magnetic fucking draw—told me to stay the fuck where I was because she wasn’t worth it. Those two parts ripped at each other until I told the smaller part to shut the fuck up and then ran after Alyssa. I escaped from the trees just in time to see her taillights disappear around the corner. I ran down the road after her, but she was gone.

  I didn’t know what this meant for us. Did she just need space? Should I chase after her or wait for her to call me? The one thing I needed was to try to find some calm, because my anger was still simmering through my veins, burning me from the inside. If I had chased after her sooner, it probably would have been a disaster. Any conversation we tried to have would likely have been explosive.

  For a moment, I sat on the kerb and tried to gather my thoughts, but the longer I thought about the way Alyssa shut down after my promise, the more my doubt seeped into my every pore. The negative words rolled through me—she would never trust me, so why should I bother to try to convince her to? Eventually, I pulled myself up off the kerb and headed back to Mum’s house. When I arrived, the front door stood open.

  “Decided to grace us with your presence again, have you?” Mum asked.

  “Mum, just fucking don’t, all right. Not now.” My mind was still twisted in knots and undecided over what I should do about Alyssa.

  “Don’t talk to your mother like that.” Dad’s voice came from the kitchen.

  “Well, if it isn’t the fucking invisible man,” I snapped back at him. Then I ignored him as I walked into the kitchen and grabbed a can of Coke out of the fridge.

  “Declan, you sit down at that table—” he started.

  “Fuck off.” I was ready to head back out the door again less than a minute after I arrived. Alyssa’s mood swing had put me on edge; I couldn’t deal with my parents’ shit too. Without waiting for him to start again, I headed for the front door.

  “Declan!” Mum called out as she chased after me. “What has gotten into you?”

  Her brow dipped into a frown and she reached for me before hesitating. A ghost of doubt crossed her face, and I wondered whether she thought I was going to fly off the handle like I apparently had during my parents’ trip to Sydney.

  Pinching the bridge of my nose, I took a deep breath. “What the fuck do you think?”

  “Why don’t you just tell me what’s wrong?”

  “Alyssa. Alyssa’s what’s fucking wrong. Alyssa is what has always been fucking wrong.” I turned away from her and took a couple of pacing steps, my hands clenching and unclenching at my sides.

  “What did you do?”

  I spun on my heels. “That’s nice, Mum, real fucking nice. Of course it has to be something I’ve fucking done, doesn’t it? She couldn’t possibly have her own shit to sort out either? It couldn’t possibly be anything but my fuck-up, right?”

  Mum looked like she was going to say something more, but I didn’t want to listen. All I could think was what a fucking waste of time the whole trip had been. All I’d done was rip open old wounds in my heart, tear some new ones in my soul, and it was all for nothing. Nothing had changed. I was still as empty as ever.

  “You know what? I’m sick of everyone assuming the fucking worst of me. I know I’ve done some fucked-up shit, but seriously, don’t I get any fucking credit for trying to fix it?”

  “You have to understand that one day of interest doesn’t make up for four years of neglect, Declan. It just can’t. Especially considering how roughly you treated her when you first left.”

  Right . . . the three months I could barely remember. I closed my eyes and sighed. It did nothing for my sanity. I could only think of one thing that would, but doing it would be breaking the rules Alyssa had set for me. Fuck her, and fuck her rules. “Whatever. I’m going out. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

  She nodded and then pressed a key into my hand. “Come home when you’re ready.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  She frowned, but didn’t say anything more as I climbed into my car and gunned the engine. I peeled off from the kerb with a squeal and drove into the ever-darkening horizon. Alyssa didn’t trust me. My mother had lied to me. My heart had been shattered and broken. My soul twisted and destroyed. More than anything, I needed to get away. To blow off some steam. There was only one way I knew how—a decent night out. A night of drinking and debauchery.

  It wasn’t like Alyssa was trying to keep up her end of the bargain, so why should I? Would she even care if I just disappeared again? I doubted it. She had her perfect life already planned out, and it was clear from her, “I can do it on my own,” that she wasn’t including me.

  Well, fuck her then.

  Ten minutes later, I was tearing down the motorway in the direction of the Gold Coast.

  Pushing the car past one eighty, I inched closer to home with every passing second.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: UNFORGIVEN

  TRAVELLING AT ALMOST twice the speed limit down the M1 toward the Gold Coast, my mind was filled with the past, and with past mistakes.

  As I drove along the highway, I passed the rides at Dreamworld, the studios at Movie World and the waterslides at Wet’n’Wild. On autopilot, my body knew just where it wanted to go. I took the Smith Street exit off the highway and followed it through Surfers Paradise and onto the Spit. I was going to our old hangout. After I finally had my licence, halfway through year twelve, Alyssa and I would come cruising regularly to the Spit with Ben and Jade. It had always bored Alyssa to tears because cars had never been her thing, but she’d had Jade to talk to and had endured the rest of it for me. Of course the shitty Datsun I’d driven then was nothing compared to my Monaro.

  I knew the Spit wouldn’t be busy because it was a weeknight, but it didn’t matter because I wasn’t coming for company. In fact, I wouldn’t have complained if I was the only car there. After pulling into the Sea World car park, I put the handbrake on, leaving the car running but not in gear. I locked my car so no fucker could disturb me.

  Once I was settled, I thought about the last day and how much everything shifted and changed constantly with Alyssa. It was almost impossible to track where I stood with her.

  Just that morning I’d had no idea what to expect, but then we’d agreed to try for an us and my hopes had skyrocketed. We’d had fun at the shops, like old friends, and then she’d frozen up when she introduced me to Phoebe and I’d taken the high road even though I hadn’t wanted to. Then, when I thought things were finally turning around, it went to shit. Somehow, I’d fucked it up in the park when I hadn’t even expected to see her there.

  Why did I have to go there?

  If I hadn’t, maybe I’d know still know where the fuck I stood now. Instead, I was down at the Gold Coast, trying to capture old memories of a better time. All I got instead was a constant loop of all the ways I’d fucked up over the years. Alyssa, my career, everything. It had all gone to shit. The only thing that connected all those dots was me.

  I turned my stereo on, threw in a CD and cranked it up. The sounds of Metallica thumped from the stereo. Closing my eyes, I let the general noise of the band, and James Hetfield’s voice in particular, take over my mind. Just like I had as a teen, I let the angry words fill me, drowning out my thoughts completely. Tapping the drumbeat on my steering wheel, I allowed the music to do its job and distract me. It worked. At least until track four came on, and I felt like the song had been written for me and everything came flooding back.

  Singing along at the top of my lungs, I vented my frustration through song. I was just fucking glad I was alone in the car park.

  Just as I was finishing the last chorus, with an extra flourish on the “drums” on my steering wheel, I spotted a security guard wandering over. I turned down my music and pushed the button to wind down my window.

  He noticed he ha
d my attention when he was halfway to my car.

  “Sorry, son, this is private property. You can’t park here.”

  I nodded and waved to let him know I would be going. I pushed repeat on the CD player before putting the car in gear and driving off. I spent twenty minutes circling the Gold Coast, not knowing what the fuck to do or where the fuck to go. In the end, I drove around the streets that were closed off to become a racetrack once each year. Those streets, I knew fucking well after four years racing there in both production cars and ProV8s.

  Those streets, I understood even if nothing else made sense.

  I clung on to the corners in my car, craving familiarity. Only there was nothing familiar there anymore. The track was cleared, the stands dismantled, and the crowds tucked in their beds all around Australia and the rest of the world. The roads were just that—roads. I longed for the comfort of my race gear, the feeling of power that came from throwing the race car around the track. I ached to feel in control of something—anything—rather than just feeling like a passive bystander in my own life.

  Parking in Surfers Paradise, I walked along the beachfront until I reached Cavil Avenue and the nightclubs that lined the road. They were ones Alyssa and I had always talked about visiting after we turned eighteen, but we’d never made it. I doubted she had even after I left; the twins were born shortly before my own eighteenth and her birthday was almost two months after that. Grief and a three-month-old would hardly have put her in the mood for clubbing.

  On a whim, I walked inside one. I didn’t notice what the name was; didn’t really care. Something to do with moons or stars or some shit. I just wanted a drink. I longed for control, but if I couldn’t have it, oblivion would do.

  It cost me a ten fucking dollar cover charge to get into the club. I ordered a double whiskey and a Corona and was out another twenty. I downed the whiskey in one gulp and chased it with the beer. At that rate, it would cost me too much to get sufficiently blotto. Once, I wouldn’t have blinked at the cost, but with my recent fines and pay suspension, I had to give a shit about things like that.

  Even though I had no idea where things stood with Alyssa, I wasn’t interested in chasing tail; for once my libido was tucked away—or perhaps I’d just left it in Browns Plains with Alyssa. On top of that, the music was shit. All in all, there was no fucking way I would be able to relax in the club, so I left. Instead, I pulled into the first bottle-o I saw and bought two small bottles of whiskey.

  Within minutes, I was back on the highway. I put “Unforgiven II” on repeat to drown out my thoughts, and drank deeply from the bottle as I drove up the highway back to Browns Plains. It was only when I turned off the highway that I decided I couldn’t leave it like it was. I drove straight to Alyssa’s house. I wasn’t happy with the way things had ended in the park and I needed to know where we stood. I just needed to get her to understand how much I needed her now. How inescapable she was for me. That I wasn’t making any promises I didn’t fully intend to keep.

  I hadn’t realised I had downed three quarters of the first bottle until I climbed out of the car and my legs didn’t work quite the way they were supposed to. I staggered across her front lawn and banged on her door. “Alyssa!”

  There was no answer from the dark little house, so I banged again and shouted louder.

  There was still no response. I tried for a third time and a light came on. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a light in Alyssa’s house but her neighbour’s. Less than a minute later, someone came out of that house. An old lady wearing a floral nightgown and a hideous pink velvet robe stared down her nose at me with a mouth pinched into the shape of an arsehole.

  “What are you doing banging like that at this hour of night?” the nosy old bitch asked.

  “I gotta talk to Alyssa,” I shouted at her. I couldn’t seem to figure out how to find the volume control for my voice.

  “Well, she’s not there.” The old bitch started to shut her door, closing my one connection to answers at the moment.

  “Wait! Do you know where she is?”

  Mrs. Nosy looked me up and down as if I were some animal pissing on her roses. “It’s not really my place to say.”

  Sure, as if you don’t fucking gossip all up and down this town.

  I didn’t recognise this old woman, but I knew her type well enough. Luckily for me, I also knew how to charm them. I took a few steps toward her yard, careful not to actually enter it because that would put her off-side. I put my best smile on my face, hoping like fuck it worked but too drunk to tell for sure. “Please, it’s really important. I have to talk to her, or at least get a message to her.”

  Mrs. Nosy looked me over again. “I know where she is. I can get a message to her for you.”

  “Tonight?” I interrupted.

  She rolled her eyes. “It’s too late to be politely calling on people, son.”

  “It’s really urgent.” I didn’t know why it was so fucking urgent, just that I needed to see her again and I felt that if I didn’t do it now, I’d never have another opportunity to try. I knew I was being irrational, but I couldn’t turn it off. A night of panic attacks and haunted dreams would be my reward if I refused to chase Alyssa right then. I wondered if it was just the words of the songs I’d been listening to that had me so worried, but I needed to see her to know that she would still try for there to be an us. I didn’t understand why she’d walked away from me at the park. Why she didn’t see that I was trying and just allow me the fucking opportunity to show her how devoted I could be if she’d just let me. Why she ran every time the future was mentioned in passing or I told her how beautiful she was.

  “Look, young man. I know Josh and Ruby wouldn’t appreciate getting a phone call this time of night—”

  I didn’t listen to the rest of her sentence. I knew enough for now. I stumbled back to my car and climbed in. I pulled out my phone and brought up the Internet. I flipped to the White Pages and entered Dawson of Browns Plains. There were fifteen names but only one J and R so I drove to the address listed for them. Why fucking call if I could just turn up? At least that way I could turn on the charm and have some chance for success—however limited that might have been.

  I finished the last of the bottle on the way to Josh’s. I needed liquid gold courage in order to be able to face him again. I could clearly remember the pain of our last meeting—a beating that severe takes a lifetime to forget. I parked the car one street over from their house. There was no point putting my baby in harm’s way if Josh decided to try to knock my block off. I wouldn’t put it past Ruby to fuck up my car somehow either.

  I walked the short distance to Josh’s house. It seemed to take forever, but I wondered whether that was because each of my steps seemed to take me farther sideways than forward. I checked each letterbox carefully, taking all my energy to focus on the numbers to make sure I got the right house. Once I was certain I had the one I needed, I thanked the Lord because the house was still mostly lit up. Someone had to be awake at least. I banged on the door once, but didn’t call out for Alyssa. That would be a sure-fire way to make sure she wasn’t the one who answered.

  The porch light came on above me and it drew my attention. I stared at it for a few moments, blinking. I didn’t even hear the door open, but I did hear the sigh. It was the smallest sound in the world but from the most important person.

  “What are you doing here, Declan?” Alyssa asked, sounding tired. “I thought we were going to meet up tomorrow night.”

  I smiled a little. “You still want to meet tomorrow?” I squeezed my eyes shut and then opened them quickly to try to focus on her.

  “Jesus Christ, Declan! Are you drunk?”

  Oh . . . fuck. Not drinking was one of her fucking requirements or some shit . . . wasn’t it? I scratched my head trying to remember. I recalled something along those lines. Shit! I shook my head enthusiastically. “Nope. Not me.” A chuckle escaped my lips.

  Alyssa pushed me away from the door and stepped out herself,
pulling it closed behind her. “Declan, how stupid do you think I am?”

  I was confused by her question. “I don’t think you’re stupid at all.” Reaching out to stroke her hair, I continued. “I think you’re pretty.”

  “I’m going to ask you another question and you need to think very carefully about how you answer it, okay?”

  “Wait, was that the question?”

  She sighed and pressed on. “Have you been drinking tonight?”

  I nodded. I’d remembered I was allowed to drink, just not get drunk.

  “Well, at least you’re not trying to lie to me anymore.”

  I scrunched my eyebrows. “I may be a fuck-up, Alyssa, but I’ve never lied to you. Well except maybe when I told you I didn’t want you anymore.”

  She pinched the bridge of her nose but remained silent.

  “I never stopped wanting you. Never. I never stopped seeing you. Never ever.”

  I stepped closer to her and put my hand on her shoulder to steady myself. I rested my mouth against her ear.

  “I never stopped loving you. You’re in my dreams every night.”

  My vantage point gave me a good opportunity to drink in all her features, and I found that was more satisfying and helpful than the entire bottle of whiskey had been. I pulled back a little and examined her whole face. A lone tear ran down her cheek. Lifting my hand, I traced my finger across her skin to wipe away the tear before cupping her face. Her eyes closed and her lips parted. I guided her face closer to me. I gave her plenty of opportunity to pull away, but she didn’t. The instant our lips met the haze lifted from my mind.

  Her lips were moist and warm as they brushed against mine. Her tongue pressed forward into my mouth and made my breathing speed. I shifted my hand from her cheek to the back of her head. I wrapped my other hand around her waist and pulled her tightly to me.

  Her hands came up into my hair and tugged at it gently. My mind was sending my body all sorts of crazy impulses. Some part of me realised that this was a mistake. I was pushing her too far and I needed to back off. I savoured her taste for another few seconds before gently pulling away from her lips and resting my forehead on hers. After the magic was broken and we’d parted, I kept my eyes closed. I didn’t want to see the expression on Alyssa’s face. I knew it didn’t matter what it was, it would kill me. If it was revulsion, it would mean I was fucked when it came to second chances. If it was need, it would drive me to decisions I needed to avoid.