Declan Reede: The Untold Story (Complete Series)

by Michelle Irwin

  “Sunday?” she answered, but it almost sounded like a question.

  “Sunday’s good.” I answered. I could see Sunday working. I wanted a family day on Sunday anyway—I would give Phoebe the best day of her life and then Alyssa and I would tell her that I was her father.

  My breath caught in my throat just thinking about it. Terror gripped me—what if she rejected me? Or didn’t like me? Or hated me for leaving Alyssa? Logically I knew she was too young to feel those things now, but what about in years to come? Could I ever make it up to her? I wanted to try, but I wasn’t sure if I would be able to succeed.

  I was lost in my own thoughts and fears for so long that Alyssa had fallen asleep and was snoring softly against me. I gently shifted her so she was facing away from me again and wrapped my arms around her, pressing my face into her hair and drawing comfort from our proximity. I stayed in that position, awake and planning out the various ways we could tell Phoebe for at least an hour before I finally succumbed to sleep myself.

  MY FINGERTIPS brushed against something soft and delicate. I stroked back and forth a few times, trying to work out exactly what they were rubbing against. A soft moan sounded out nearby. Opening my eyes, I found that my hands were currently residing inside Alyssa’s pyjamas and my fingers were playing along the underside of her breasts. For a second, I worried what she must think. The moan had sounded like it was issued in pleasure, but I couldn’t be certain. I raised my head to look at Alyssa’s face but realised quickly she was fast asleep still, her lips parted but drawn into a small smile. Slowly, reluctantly, I drew my hand back from her skin and pushed myself up to a sitting position.

  Swinging my legs out, I sat on the edge of the bed and rested my elbows on my knees. I cradled my head in my hands, and tried to process all the events of the last twenty-four hours. I knew I needed to go home eventually, but I had no idea what I would say to Mum. What could I say? I was disappointed in her, in Dad, in everyone who had known and not done a damn thing about it. But wasn’t that a bit fucking hypocritical, considering my own actions? Then again, nothing I had done with intent while sober was as bad as what he’d knowingly chosen to do.

  I wanted to wake Alyssa up and quiz her on why Mum didn’t have Phoebe on weekends if it wasn’t because she knew about Dad and Hayley. I believed her when she told me she didn’t know; the look on her face and her reactions were enough to convince me. But that still meant there were too many secrets and too much lying bullshit going on.

  I wanted to get all our cards out in the open. To know about everything I’d done to hurt Alyssa during my darkest times, but I also wanted to know about the other secrets people were still hiding from me. Dragging my hand through my hair, I stood. I had nothing to get changed into but decided my shirt/boxer combo was modest enough not to scare Phoebe if she surprised me when I left the room.

  At the door, I turned back to take in the sight of Alyssa before leaving her. She was curled up in a ball and the smile from earlier was gone. A frown had replaced it. I wanted to rush back over to her and smooth the worry off her brow, but I wasn’t sure how Alyssa would feel about me doing something so intimate if she woke up and caught me. I opened the door as quietly as I could manage and went in search of the toilet.

  After I’d drained the main vein, I walked out to the kitchen. I saw something move in the living room out of the corner of my eyes but chose to ignore it as I opened the fridge, taking in the contents. I grabbed out the juice and turned around to hunt for the glasses, pushing the door shut behind me.

  I started and then groaned when I ran into the hulking form of Flynn. He crossed his arms and glared at me, like I was supposed to be scared of his pansy arse or some shit. Okay, so maybe I was a little—I knew he could probably beat me down if he wanted to—but I wasn’t going to let the fucker know it.

  Trying my best to ignore him, I set about hunting through the cupboards for a fucking glass. I probably could have just asked him, he had his own fucking room there after all, but I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, his tone rough, rude, and unapologetic.

  Ignoring him, I poured myself a glass of juice. As I drank it down I could feel his eyes boring into my back. After I’d finished drinking, I put the glass down on the bench and turned around. He was staring at me, clearly waiting for a response.

  “That’s Alyssa’s business,” I said with a shrug.

  “Alyssa’s business is my business,” he said in a voice of ice. “So what are you doing here?”

  “Things are gonna start to change around here, Flynn.” I said his name like a curse. “You’re not going to be number one in Lys’s life anymore.”

  He scoffed.

  “What the fuck do you find so funny?” I asked, stupidly getting in his face.

  “I was never number one. I don’t want to be number one.”

  “Whatever. Just know that things are going to change.”

  To my surprise he laughed. “You just don’t get it do you? After our last conversation, I thought maybe you might, but you don’t. I hoped maybe you’d learn, but you’re just a fucking idiot with his head up his own arse.”

  I wanted to ask him what the fuck he meant but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

  “You know the way Alyssa used to talk about you, I honestly thought you were a decent guy who deserved to be in their lives. That was the reason I left you the birth certificate. That was the reason I convinced Cain to fix your car.”

  “You know nothing about me,” I hissed icily.

  “Clearly,” he said. “The media certainly got a few things right though.”

  “Fuck the media.”

  “You should leave Alyssa alone.”

  “Why? Give me one good fucking reason.”

  “Goddammit, what do you think she’s going to go through when you fucking kill yourself with your stupidity?”

  “Fuck off.”

  “You’re inflicting all your issues on Alyssa. Hurting her.”

  “That’s what you do when you are a couple, you share your issues.”

  “Maybe, but you’re not a couple.”

  “We’re fucking trying to be. If only every other fucker wouldn’t stick their noses in and keep fucking trying to ruin things for us.” I made my point by poking his chest with each word. If I wasn’t in Alyssa’s house, I probably would have smashed his face against the cupboards by now.

  He laughed. “The funny thing is you do a good enough job fucking things up yourself.”

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “Turning up here drunk like that. Honestly, man.” He shook his head at me.

  “Just keep your fucking nose out of my business. She knows the fucking truth about yesterday and really that’s all that fucking matters. I’m not going to justify myself to you. I really don’t fucking need to.”

  “Will you two please just stop already!” Alyssa called from the hallway. Her voice was quiet, but deathly and filled with tears.

  I shot Flynn a look intended to kill. He fucking couldn’t leave well enough a-fucking-lone, could he? Now Alyssa was pissed at me again. After we’d found our way to an amicable place before falling asleep the night before. It was like we were back to square fucking one again, and it was his fault.

  I turned to comfort Alyssa but somehow that fucker got there first and walked her back down the hallway away from me. As he wrapped his arms around her, he whispered an apology and asked, “We didn’t wake the princess did we?”

  Alyssa shook her head. “No, thank goodness—”

  They disappeared into Alyssa’s room and the closing of the door cut off the rest of her sentence.

  “Fuck!” I cried, kicking at the kitchen cupboards.

  Leaning my weight against the counter, I tried to steady my breathing. Flynn was going to be a fucking problem. Alyssa’s family was going to be a fucking problem. No one seemed willing to give me a fucking second chance.

&nbs
p; Except for her.

  The thing was, I understood their anger. I’d fucked up big time where Alyssa was concerned. I knew it. It didn’t seem to matter to any of them how hard I was trying to fix it though. It meant nothing to them. In their eyes, I was still just the big fucking arsehole trying to hurt her.

  My anger made me twitchy. I needed to lash out. To do . . . something. I couldn’t stay still any longer. Couldn’t stand in her kitchen looking at the closed fucking doors without wanting to tear something apart—preferably the arsehole who’d taken her away from me.

  I had to go. There was no fucking point staying when Alyssa was already upset with me—all I would do was fuck things up more. I hunted quickly for the essentials—wallet, car keys, phone, and pants. I found a scrap of paper and wrote Alyssa a note.

  I meant what I said last night.

  Call me.

  — D

  I pinned it underneath a magnet shaped like the letter P in a prominent position on the fridge. Then I rinsed the glass I’d used and left it to dry beside the sink.

  After unlocking the front screen door using the key that was already in the lock, I crept out of the house as quietly as I could. I climbed into the Barina and felt a surge of regret. Why did that fucker have to rile me up so fucking much? That morning could have been a fucking magnificent morning, based on how Alyssa and I had been the previous night. I slammed the car door shut in frustration.

  Frustration at myself, at the world, at Flynn, at everyone and everything.

  Releasing a frustrated growl, I turned the key in the ignition and slammed the car into reverse. By the time I reached the end of the road, it was clear I had nowhere to go. I had no one I could go to.

  I could go home, but I still didn’t want to face Mum. There was nowhere else I needed to be. Without thought, I drove through the streets until I ended up outside our old school. I parked the car and climbed out.

  There was only one place I could go to get any peace of mind: our park.

  I walked the short distance as quickly as I could. My phone started to ring just as I sat down in at the table. I pulled it out anxiously, hoping it would be Alyssa because it’d been almost an hour since I’d left her house. I hoped she had kicked that fucker out and we could talk properly. My face fell as I read the number on the screen. It was only Dr. Henrikson. It was earlier than he’d called before, but I wasn’t going to argue with his schedule.

  “Good morning, Declan,” he said after I answered the phone. “Are you feeling better than yesterday?”

  The events of the previous twenty-four hours crashed down on top of me and my voice croaked as I responded, “No, not really.”

  “Are you ready to continue our discussion?” he asked.

  Part of me wanted to say no, to hang up and pitch the phone across the park, but instead I swallowed down a painful breath and said, “Yeah. I think I’m ready now.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: IT’S SEMANTICS

  “WHY DON’T YOU tell me what happened?” Dr. Henrikson asked in his smooth tones.

  With the story on my lips, I found myself recalling sessions in his office; his voice hypnotic, soothing. In that moment, it occurred to me that we never actually talked about anything real. We’d talked about bullshit like what happened during races, about clubs, about life in Sydney, about the things I’d done while high—at least the things I could remember. It was clear now though that I’d had no life in Sydney. I wasn’t living there, and I’d never hurt this much there either.

  “Doc,” I said. “This story, it’s real fucked-up. I . . . I don’t know where to begin.”

  “The beginning is usually the best place. You were telling me about how you met Alyssa yesterday. Why don’t you tell me about how you fell in love?”

  He was trying to ease me into the harder stuff, that much was clear. I decided to try and let him. He was the shrink after all. Plus, I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to get the rest out otherwise. How could I just come out and tell him the things I needed to say when the lump in my throat was so large I could barely swallow?

  “I guess a part of me always knew I loved her,” I said. “Even if I couldn’t admit it to myself. When I was fifteen . . . Well, it just kind of happened one day. The school year was coming to a close and we’d finished a big test, so we wagged our last class and went to our park.”

  The air felt heavy as I spoke, as if the world around me held its breath while I whispered my secrets.

  “That first kiss,” I said, closing my eyes as the memory washed over me. When I opened them again, I paused and glanced around me. It had happened no more than a few metres from where I sat. My lips burned at the memory, scorched forever by Alyssa.

  “Even now, I don’t know who actually started it. I think it may have been me, but I’ll never know for sure. We had one of those movie moments, you know? Where you pause and stare at each other’s lips for a second that feels like forever, then slowly, one of you starts to move forward, before pausing once more to assess the situation, then . . .”

  I stopped as the memory overtook me again. Her lips had been so warm against mine. She’d thought I had lots of experience, but she was the first girl I’d ever kissed like that. Despite the lack of knowledge on both our parts, we just fit. It was perfect.

  “What happened then?” Dr. Henrikson asked, pulling me from my thoughts.

  “Well, that was it. From then until I left Brisbane, Alyssa was the only one for me.” It wasn’t entirely true. There had been the extremely brief, terribly regrettable week with Darcy, but I preferred not to linger on memories of that. Even if both Alyssa and I had been with someone else at the time, our hearts had belonged to one another.

  “So would you say you had the perfect relationship?” he asked, his voice reserved.

  “Hell no.” I laughed a little as memories played through my head. “We fought like wild cats. We probably broke up at least once every few weeks, but we always found our way back to each other, at least eventually. There was never anyone else. Not really.”

  “So why did it end?”

  “A lot of reasons, I guess. I had the contract for Sinclair Racing. She wanted me to go to uni. Neither of us was willing to compromise.”

  “So that was what ended your whole relationship? Just a disagreement over where life was headed?”

  “Well, that and her brother beat the shit out of me.”

  “Why?”

  I sighed. “Because he thought I raped her.”

  “Why did he think that? Is that what Alyssa told him?”

  “Fuck no. Josh is”—I tried to think of the right word to describe him—“a little overzealous sometimes. He jumps to conclusions way too easily. Alyssa and I fought after our first night together and she stormed out in her nightclothes with a ripped dress. She spent the whole trip home crying too.”

  “And so he confronted you about it?”

  “No, he beat the shit out of me. He didn’t even let me say anything. It was what ended up making my mind up about moving to Sydney. I only saw Alyssa once more after that, at least until recently.”

  “You believe Josh is the reason you moved to Sydney?”

  “Well, he was a big part of the reason.”

  “And if he wasn’t there, waiting on your doorstep, what would you and Alyssa have done about your departure?”

  I couldn’t answer. I knew the answer, but I couldn’t say it out loud.

  “Do you think you might have left anyway?” he prompted.

  “Yes.” My voice was small and weak in my own ears and yet I knew it was the absolute truth. “But I would have tried harder to make things work with Alyssa.”

  “Would you? You always seemed quite certain that you liked the life you had here, the . . . freedoms it afforded you.”

  “I don’t know, Doc. I mean I was young and fucking stupid, and terrified of the power she had over me. Whenever I was in her presence, I just wanted to lock us both away in our own secret bubble and never have to face the wo
rld again. That frightened the hell out of me.”

  “It sounds like you two were pretty intense.”

  I chuckled. “That’s one word for it.”

  “So what happened next? Did Alyssa just let you go?”

  All traces of the good mood that was building inside me at memories of Alyssa and me fell away as I remembered what happened next. “No, she, ah, well . . . I ignored her phone calls for almost a year before she finally stopped calling.”

  “Is that what you meant yesterday? When you said you abandoned her.”

  I closed my eyes to hold back the tears and nodded, stupidly forgetting I was on the phone and that he couldn’t see me.

  “Abandoned is a very strong word, Declan. Why do you think you chose that word specifically?”

  “Doc, the . . .” A sob ripped through my chest. Taking a deep breath to get myself back under control, I continued. “The things she went through.”

  “Like what?”

  “She lost a child . . .” My son, I finished in my head.

  “That’s a terrible thing for anyone to have to go through, especially if you had been there for her in the past. But it doesn’t explain the use of the word abandoned, or is there something more?”

  I sobbed again. My chest burned with a lack of oxygen. My eyes stung with tears that refused to fall.

  “She lost our child.” I launched straight into the story Alyssa had told me, not trusting myself to pause for breath or I risked stopping entirely and collapsing in a heap. When I finished there was silence on the other end of the line.

  “Declan, I would like for you to come in and see me as soon as you are able. In person.”

  “Sure, Doc.” I was certain Alyssa would make me stick to the sessions for a while anyway and to be honest, I felt just a tiny bit lighter after telling him the story. It would never be forgotten, and I didn’t know if the pain would ever go away, but it had helped in some miniscule way to talk about it.

  “Where are things at between you and Alyssa at the moment?”