Declan Reede: The Untold Story (Complete Series)

by Michelle Irwin

  I welcomed it all.

  The physical pain gave me an outlet to focus on so that I didn’t have to feel the emotional scars as deeply.

  Glancing down at my bloodied hands, I didn’t know how much of the blood was mine and how much was Blake’s. My knuckles had burst from connecting with the concrete during my frenzy, so it must have been at least a little of each. After a handful of breaths, the anger leached out of me, leaving me unfeeling and emotionless again. With shaking fingers, I started the car and drove from the car park before the police arrived—if they’d been called. For the second time that night, I drove without thinking and with no set destination in mind.

  When I stopped the car, I was at my mother’s house. I blinked, trying to remember how I got there but I drew a blank. There was no way I could leave again though, not until I’d had a chance to stop and process.

  Leaving the car parked at a skewed angle to the kerb, half on Mum’s front lawn, I stumbled to her front door. My brain refused to process anything; my body was numb. The only thing I could feel was the painful throb of my heart. That was obviously enough to compel me to return to a place of familiarity. I hadn’t seen my mum face to face in almost eleven months, not since the previous Christmas, when we’d met for coffee while I was in Brisbane. Of course I’d stayed in a hotel then, not wanting to return to Browns Plains. At the time, I hadn’t wanted to risk seeing Alyssa.

  How could I have been so stupid?

  I banged on the door with my open palm because my knuckles were too badly scraped to use. I didn’t know what the time was and I only hoped it wasn’t too late. The door pulled open to reveal my mother’s shocked face. She was still dressed in her normal clothes so I couldn’t have been disturbing her too much.

  “Declan?” She looked out into the darkness at me.

  Even though I towered over her, I’d never felt more like a little boy in all my adult life. I’d never before wanted so badly to be pulled into an embrace and reassured that everything would be all right, even though I knew it wouldn’t be. Couldn’t be. I just wanted to feel like maybe, just maybe, I could find a way past the pain. I wanted to hear from someone on my side that maybe Alyssa would talk to me soon and we could at least try to be friends again. With those thoughts in my head, I collapsed into my mother’s arms, rested my head on her shoulder and began to sob again.

  She held me like she used to when I was a child, gently brushing her fingers through my hair. She didn’t ask what was wrong—no doubt she suspected the reason. She just stood there and comforted me until I felt able to move. When I could, I headed for the living room but stopped dead at what I saw there.

  Alyssa was curled on my mother’s armchair. A coffee mug sat abandoned beside her on the small side table. She looked like a deer in headlights, a gasp frozen on her lips.

  At the sight of the shocked expression, I remembered what Flynn had said. She was afraid of me.

  I didn’t want her to feel that.

  After taking two steps to cover the distance between us, I fell to my knees at her feet. I ducked my head and pressed my fists into my eyes. Gut-wrenching dry sobs tore from my chest and I couldn’t get the breath to say what I wanted—needed—to say. I could feel the blood from my fists ooze from between my fingers and rub into my eyes, but I didn’t care. Couldn’t care. After a moment, the blood mixed with the moisture in my eyes and dripped down my face in small tear-like drops.

  In a gentle gesture of comfort, fingertips brushed hesitantly through my hair. Even though I couldn’t look to confirm my suspicious, I realised they were Alyssa’s by the sensation of rightness that raced down my spine. One of my hands was gently coaxed away from my face. Cool, wet material ran over the knuckles and wrapped softly between my fingers. I kept my eyes pressed tightly together, not wanting to break the spell of the touch—her touch.

  If I opened my eyes, she would see how broken I was. The one who’d been too scared of her hold to pick up the damn phone, leaving her alone in her time of need. Before I understood what she was doing, she’d wrapped dry material around my knuckles. I relished the contact and didn’t do or say anything that might risk her stopping.

  She let go of my hand, and I let it fall to my side. With a gentle touch, she coaxed my other hand toward her and repeated the process. Once she’d finished wrapping it too, her hands gingerly touched my face, just on the either side of my jaw. When she used her hold to tilt my head from side to side, I followed her desire without words or resistance. The wet rag ran over my eyes and down my cheeks, washing away the blood and the salt tracks that remained on my face.

  She ran a finger along my arm, just to the side of the covering over the cut my arm. Taking obvious being care not to hurt me, she pulled the dressing off, checked over the wound, and then re-covered it with something new.

  Throughout the whole thing, we were both silent. I couldn’t find the words I needed, because I was too concerned they’d only drive her away. That I would.

  Slowly, I opened my eyes, and fresh tears sprang up from God knows where when I met the honey-gold depths of her gaze. There seemed to be a knowledge buried within them, an instinct to care and protect. In that moment, I wanted to be cared for. I wanted to be protected. I was selfish enough to take everything she offered me. I leaned over her lap, clutching her hips between my hands and pressing my face against her thighs as I sobbed. Her hand traced small circles on my back.

  “I’m sorry you had to find out like this, Declan,” she whispered to me. “You don’t know how many times I tried to tell you when we were on the plane and in London. It’s just . . . it’s not very easy to talk about. Especially not to you.”

  I shook my head. I wanted to tell her that I was the one who should have been apologising. I was the one who hadn’t returned her calls. I was the one who’d thrown her out on the streets rather than listen to her story. All of it was my fault. I couldn’t get anything out other than, “I’m sorry,” so I whispered that into her lap again and again. The soft denim of her jeans brushed my cheek as I clutched her hips to keep myself grounded.

  Eventually, I found other words.

  I whispered them in the same hushed tones as my apologies. “What happened?”

  “Do you know the story of Castor and Pollux?” she asked in response.

  The names were from the tombstone, but I didn’t really know more than that. I shook my head.

  “In Greek mythology, Castor and Pollux were the twin sons of Lēda and Zeus. In the myth, the twins shared the same mother but had different fathers, so Pollux was immortal while Castor was mortal. At one time, they were involved in a dispute with their cousins, and Castor was mortally wounded. Pollux begged Zeus to save Castor’s life. Zeus agreed, but on one condition: Pollux would have to give up half of his own immortality in order to save Castor. Pollux agreed and so they spent their days alternating between Hades and Mount Olympus. Eventually, they were cast into the heavens and form part of the Gemini constellation.”

  My eyes flicked to her chest, just beneath her heart. Although she had a shirt on, I could still picture the small tattoo hidden beneath it. From her words, it was obvious that the stars were shaped into the Gemini constellation—the twins. My heart sank to the floor at the thought.

  She stopped rubbing the circles on my back, presumably to wipe away her tears. Her voice was full of them. I wished I could do more, but I was struck by grief and wound so tightly under her spell that I couldn’t move an inch. I waited for her to continue. The story she’d told obviously had some greater relevance, but she needed to tell it all in her own time.

  She took a deep breath and then the circles on my back started again. When she spoke again, her voice sounded far off, as if she was allowing someone else to take control of her body or reading a story from a script. “When I was a little less than eight months pregnant, Phoebe’s placenta detached from my womb. She started to suffocate and I was rushed for an emergency caesarean. They delivered both her and Emmanuel.”

 
I waited for the impact of her telling me he’d already passed by the time they got the babies out.

  “Despite being so early, Emmanuel was a fighter. I can still see him in his humidicrib. He was so strong and so healthy despite his tiny size. Although they got to us in time to save Phoebe, not long after delivery, they found she’d had issues which had irreparably damaged her kidneys and liver. She probably would have been stillborn if I’d gone to term. As it was, she was on dialysis from the hour she was born.”

  I couldn’t understand what she was saying. Emmanuel had been the healthy one? But then why . . .

  I started to sob again as my thoughts turned to him—to the son I’d never met and never could.

  Alyssa’s voice continued with the same ghost-like quality as before. “Then, when they were three days old, Phoebe was getting worse. The doctors said that if she didn’t get a transplant, she would die. It’s next to impossible to get a matching donor organ for a baby though. An adult’s organs are just too big. Then Emmanuel—” She choked back a sob. “The doctor said it was SIDS—Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. They couldn’t give us a reason for it other than that. I knew though. I knew exactly what had happened. He’d given up his life to save his sister’s. He protected her and saved her, the way a big brother should.” She said it with such conviction and certainty. “The operation was so difficult they still could have lost her. It took hours and hours.” Her voice was thick with tears, and I found myself drawing less comfort from her and trying to provide it instead. “The next few days and weeks were touch and go to see if it worked. Transplants in ones so little are so rare they are practically non-existent. We were just so blessed that it did.”

  I wanted to say that I was sorry again—over and over until everything was back to the way it should have been—but I didn’t want to stop her story. I needed to hear it all—even though every word was a dagger to my heart.

  “I named Phoebe for the moon. I’d always thought of her that way. From the first moment I knew I was pregnant. She helped give light to the empty night my life had become without you in it. Emmanuel’s sacrifice helped me to see that sometimes there’s a plan for things and even though that plan isn’t always what you think it should be, you need to have faith, so I named him for that faith. While he was trying to comfort me in the hospital, Flynn told me about Gemini and the legend of Castor and Pollux. They just seemed like the perfect middle names after what happened.”

  I pulled back into a kneeling position and was finally courageous enough to meet Alyssa’s gaze. Her eyes were brimming with tears, but surprisingly none fell. It was then that I remembered she’d been dealing with the heartache for almost three and a half years. Although it was clear she still ached and grieved, the wounds weren’t as raw for her as they were for me.

  In that instant, looking deep into her eyes, I saw the depth of the heartbreak she’d endured. At my hand.

  I didn’t break eye contact as I whispered. “I’m sorry.”

  She broke.

  Then I did.

  I climbed onto the seat next to her and we both sat wrapped in each other’s arms.

  Each broken in our own way.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: JUST A FACT

  I DIDN’T KNOW how it happened.

  I didn’t know who initiated it.

  I didn’t even really know why.

  All I knew was that one second Alyssa and I were in each other’s arms, sharing our sorrow over our joint loss, and the next our lips were pressed together. Our kiss was slow and soft. It was warm and welcoming. In some ways, it was like the first kiss we’d ever shared, with one exception: our shared tears wet our cheeks and coated our skin. She tasted of sorrow, heartbreak, and broken promises.

  She hummed against my mouth as her hands found their way into my hair. I reciprocated as best as I could with my bandaged hands, running them up the side of her face, cupping it and pulling it to mine. My eyes were closed as I felt my world become completely immersed in her.

  She made no move to stop the kiss, and neither did I.

  She made no move to take the kiss any further, and neither did I.

  Even though our lips dragged slowly across each other’s, our tongues didn’t meet. The kiss wasn’t passionate or fuelled by desire. It was just about comfort. About sharing with each other the love we both felt—that we always had felt and would always feel. It wasn’t about the fevered love shared between lovers, but the peaceful love shared between best friends—the type of love that distance, barriers, and problems couldn’t break. An innocent and pure love that reached between our souls, transcending all the crap that had gone on between us.

  The kiss was a perfect salve for my fucked-up soul and utterly unlike anything I’d ever experienced before.

  At some point, my mother must have returned from giving us our space to talk because I heard the audible gasp when she re-entered the room to offer me a drink. What had started as a question became an admonishment.

  “Declan!”

  I pulled back from the kiss to meet Alyssa’s gaze. The sorrow was still there and so was the fear. I closed my eyes and rested my forehead against hers. I didn’t want to move. Moving would mean talking, which would mean getting to the fucked-up part of the evening where the little progress we’d made would be wiped away with one wrong word. To the moment we would shout at each other, and hurl barbed insults, and would probably end with one of us walking out the door forever.

  Most likely me.

  In the imperfectly perfect moment we’d shared, I could feel the connection that ran between us. The same connection that had scared the shit out of me and sent me running when I was seventeen, but that I now wanted to cling to in order to pull myself out of the mire of my life. When I was with her, I could pass half of my pain and suffering on to her and take half of hers in return. Somehow that made it easier to deal with the agony.

  Alyssa’s hands fell away from me and she moved her body as far away from mine as she could in the armchair. I followed her lead and pulled farther away too, even though the action threatened to shatter me anew.

  Then Alyssa spoke. “I’m sorry. I’ve got to go. I . . . I can’t do this. Not now. You need to deal with this yourself first.”

  I nodded and slumped forward under the weight of my own grief returning in full.

  “Kelly, thanks for the talk before.” I watched impassively as Alyssa walked across to my mother and pulled her into an embrace. “I’ll talk to you soon, okay?”

  Alyssa moved to the front door, opened it, and then she was gone. Out into the dark night.

  No! Fuck that shit! There was no way I was letting her just walk away from me again.

  I leapt from the chair and rushed to the front door and sprinted up behind her. “Alyssa, wait!”

  She stopped for a second and then took another step toward the car in the driveway that was obviously hers.

  “Please?”

  She turned slowly toward me. “Declan, I—”

  “Marry me,” I cut her off.

  Her jaw dropped and her face fell into a frown. It didn’t seem like the usual reaction to a marriage proposal, but who the fuck was I to know? I’d never done this shit before. Never planned on doing it either.

  “What?” she asked. Her voice held no joy or even sorrow, only indignation.

  “I want to fix this,” I explained. “I want to make it right.”

  “And you think getting married will somehow magically make everything better?” Her voice pitched higher and higher as she spoke.

  Taken aback, I retreated from her rage. “No, but it’s what I should have done four years ago. Instead of running, I should have married you.”

  She stared at me with her jaw slack and the same frown still marring her features. As I watched her, I could see her anger slowly melt away, leaving her with nothing but a pained expression. I wanted to do everything I could to wipe away her agony.

  “I love you, Lys.”

  She closed her eyes and took a fe
w deep breaths. When she opened her eyes again and spoke, it was as if she was explaining something simple to a three-year-old. “No, you don’t.”

  “Of course I do,” I argued. I’d discovered just how much when we were in London and I’d learned that apparently all she’d wanted was a casual fuck. “I always have. I know that now.”

  “You love who I was, maybe, but you don’t know me, Dec. Not anymore. I . . . I’m a different person now. And so are you.”

  I shook my head. Didn’t she feel the same way as I did? Didn’t she feel the thrill when we kissed? Didn’t her heart race from something as simple as holding hands with me?

  “We’ve both changed,” she continued. “Four years is a long time, and a lot has happened. To both of us.”

  Her refusal to even acknowledge the way I might feel was too much. “Then what the fuck do you want from me?”

  A tear slipped down her cheek. “Nothing. Remember you’re the one who came here, Declan. I haven’t turned up on your doorstep begging you for anything.”

  At the sight of her fresh tears, of the sorrow I was responsible for, my anger left me. I stepped closer to her, reaching out to caress her tear-soaked cheek. She jerked away from my touch.

  “I want to fix it,” I whispered. “What can I do to fix this?”

  “I don’t know what to tell you.” Her voice was strained.

  “Tell me how to make this right,” I begged.

  “I don’t know how!” Her voice came as a shouted cry. “All right? If I knew how to make it right I would have done that by now. But nothing is going to change the fact that you left four years ago and nothing is going to change the fact that Emmie is dead. Those are facts, Declan. Facts don’t change, but they do change people.”

  “Please, Lys, even if you don’t believe that I love you, you have to believe that I care about you. I don’t want to just leave it like this between us.”

  She sighed and stepped away from me, closer to her car. “We won’t. At least . . . well, what I mean is, it’s your choice. If you’re still here tomorrow, maybe we can talk again then.”