by Kyra Lennon
Final Score Part Two
by
Kyra Lennon
Final Score Part Two © Kyra Lennon 2016
E-edition published worldwide 2016 © Kyra Lennon
All rights reserved in all media. This book may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, in whole or in part, without written permission from the author.
All characters and events featured in this book are entirely fictional and any resemblance to any person, organisation, place or thing is purely coincidental and completely unintentional.
Chapter One – I Want Us
My dress. My gorgeous, stunning dress. Struggling to catch my breath, I closed my eyes. Maybe if I closed them tight, I’d open them and find this hadn’t happened. That my dress was still how it should have been. Clean and pristine.
“What happened?” I murmured. Dumb question. It was obvious what had happened. Jen’s kid had used my dress as a canvas and now… it was ruined.
“It was an accident,” Jen said, her voice still quivering. “I’m so sorry, Leah. Harley got upstairs and-”
“Just stop!” Deanna snapped, spinning around to face Jen. “This was no accident. You are a poisonous bitch who has just been waiting for a chance to ruin Leah and Radleigh’s wedding!”
“Please,” I said quietly, still trying to process. “Can one of you take the kids out into the garden? They don’t need to hear this.”
Mitch took control, and still holding Jessica, he took Jayden by the hand, and Jayden pulled Harley behind him as they walked through to the kitchen, headed for the back door.
Once they were out of earshot, I glanced up at my dress again and tears stung my eyes. It had been so perfect. The dress. Thousands of dollars spent on something that would have to be binned. Unless I wanted to walk down the aisle looking like some weird piece of art representing a rebellion against tradition, but that wasn’t really my style.
“Leah,” Deanna said gently, coming to my side and helping me to my feet. “I feel terrible about this. I didn’t know Jen was going to be here, and Mitch and I had only been home a few minutes before all this happened.”
“How did it happen?” I asked, holding onto her for support because my legs were still shaking.
The fact that Radleigh hadn’t spoken didn’t go unnoticed by me, even in my shocked state. Why wasn’t he standing up for me? Why wasn’t he saying anything? His head hung down; even he couldn’t bring himself to look at the mess Harley had made.
“We were painting,” Jen said, and I glanced over at her, wanting to smack her puffy, tear-stained face. Fake tears for a situation she’d caused. “In the kitchen. I guess… I guess I wasn’t paying enough attention, and Radleigh and I were helping Jayden mix some colours. Harley left the kitchen with the pot of blue paint but we didn’t realise he’d taken it. This is a big house, and when I found him, he was in Mitch and Deanna’s room, and…” she stopped, not really needing to continue.
I narrowed my eyes. “How long were you not paying attention?” I asked. And what were you really doing that you lost track of him for long enough that he got into Deanna’s closet? The thought made me feel sick so I halted it before it got the better of me.
“It really wasn’t that long, but-”
“Please,” Deanna interrupted. “You must think we’re all kinds of stupid to fall for this.” She turned to Radleigh. “And you. What the hell is wrong with you? You can’t really believe this was an accident? How does a three-year-old get into a closet, and just happen to stumble across a wedding dress that was put away in a protective cover at the very back? Nobody has touched it since Leah brought it over. How would he have got the cover off on his own and pulled the dress out? If you were thinking with your goddamn brain for once, you’d see that she did this!”
“But… Jen said she was down here with Radleigh when Harley was upstairs,” I said. I wasn’t trying to defend her, but even Jen couldn’t be in two places at once. She was a bitch, not a magician.
“She was.” Radleigh refused to meet my eye as he spoke.
“But she had been upstairs,” Deanna said. “Right? To use the bathroom or something?”
He nodded.
“So, for whatever reason, she thought it was okay to walk into my bedroom and look for that dress. Because there is no way in hell that little boy did this on his own without help or encouragement.”
“No!” Jen said. “I swear, I-”
“Shut up!” I snapped. “Dee is right. Even if he’d wandered off for half an hour, there’s no way he would have done all that without help. He wouldn’t have reached to take it from the hanger on his own. And even if he did, why would he have just gone for the dress? If he wanted to paint some clothes, why not all of Deanna’s clothes? Why just my wedding dress?”
“I don’t know!” She turned to Radleigh. “Please, Radleigh. I didn’t-”
Radleigh shook his head, still not looking at either of us.
What a spineless asshole. Who was this guy? He wasn’t defending Jen, but he sure as hell wasn’t on my side either. This woman had helped deface the dress I was supposed to walk down the aisle to marry him in, and the only emotion I got from him was… confusion? I wasn’t even sure that was it. Whatever it was, it wasn’t the anger I’d have expected.
I didn’t know what to do. I was supposed to be letting Radleigh spend some time with his daughter, and I’d hoped maybe he and I could talk a little, but all I really wanted in that moment was to get as far away from that place as possible. I didn’t want to see my ruined wedding gown, or the woman who had helped spoil it, for another second.
Turning to Deanna so I didn’t have to see the two people who were slowly ripping my world to pieces, I said, “I need to go. Please can you bring Jessica home later?”
She nodded, and the tears in her eyes made my own spill over. Seeing how much she hurt for me just made everything worse. Her support meant everything to me, but knowing the effect this was having on her and Mitch made me feel awful. They didn’t deserve to go through this. Didn’t deserve to deal with the same stress I was dealing with.
“I’ll bring her back,” Radleigh said.
Without taking my eyes from Deanna, I said, “No. You won’t. I don’t want to see you right now.”
“We need to talk.”
I almost laughed. Now he wanted to talk? Now, when the last remaining bit of hope I’d had that we’d be okay had been destroyed? Where had he been over the last seven days when I’d needed him to help me make sense of what was happening between us? Why hadn’t he tried to bridge the gap sooner?
Before I let myself get sucked into the spiralling thought patterns of whether or not this was my fault, I pushed my hands through my hair and sighed. “You need to make a decision. I wanted you to have time to think, Radleigh. I wanted to let you figure out whether you still want to marry me now the love of your life is back in town with your son. But you’ve had time. If you don’t know what you want by now, there’s not much hope for us. Even after she’s done this… you’re still not fighting for me.”
The silence boomed in my ears, but I wasn’t expecting a response. So when he yelled, my heart hammered, making me jump and turn to face him.
“When did you fight for me?” His ice blue eyes blazed with rage. “When did you fight for me? Jen came back, and you just let me go as if it was the easiest thing in the world! As if I meant nothing to you! So don’t fucking tell me I didn’t fight for you when you were the one who told me to leave!”
“You lied to me! Over and over again! What was I supposed to do, huh? Pretend that was okay with me? That you sneaking around with her was okay? That you letting her kiss you and hold your hand did
n’t matter to me? That you’d come home, climb into our bed with me, and pretend everything was great when it wasn’t? You don’t get to have it both ways!”
I tried hard to control my heart rate, but I couldn’t stop my anger from forcing it to pump harder, my chest rising and falling rapidly.
“If you want me to fight for you, here it is,” I told him. “I. Love. You. This whole thing is killing me. Waking up without you every morning hurts. Going to bed alone every night hurts. Cooking dinner for one sucks. The idea that I might not get to spend the rest of my life with you makes me feel sick. Physically sick. Because there has never been anyone I’ve wanted more than I want you. And at this point, I don’t know if you feel the same. As much I don’t want to have to face the prospect of you wanting to be with her, I can’t live like this anymore. I can’t. I’m gonna need you to choose where you want to be. And whatever decision you make, we need to figure out a better way to communicate, for Jessica’s sake even more than ours. I can’t imagine a life that doesn’t have you in it. One that doesn’t involve us being together with the house full of children we talked about. I don’t want to imagine it. I want us, Radleigh.”
The silence boomed around us until, slowly, he nodded, not taking his eyes off me. That wasn’t his answer. It was him telling me he heard me and that he was sick of this too. Deanna and Jen both stood totally still while he and I battled it out, and when I was sure he wasn’t going to say anything more, I turned back to Deanna. “Do you have enough of Jessica’s stuff to keep her overnight?”
She nodded, swallowing hard. Again, I had to breathe deeply, to stop myself crying until I’d got out of there. Turning to Radleigh one more time, I said, “Would you like to keep her for the night?”
“Yes. I’d like that.”
I gave him a small smile. “I’ll pick her up in the morning. Can you please give her a kiss from me? I… I have to go.”
I didn’t give him a chance to answer, just hurried to the door and went outside to take some gulps of fresh air as the tears finally fell. I stumbled my way to the car and got into the driver’s seat then rested my head against the steering wheel as heavy sobs wracked my body.
The ache in my heart seemed to penetrate right through to my soul, and all I could do was sit still and cry it out. I’d fought so hard to do the right thing. Trying to pin him to my side would not have been the right thing. Letting him take a while to think was the only option that made sense to me. I felt as though I’d made my feelings for him clear before he left, but maybe, in my panic and desperation not to get hurt, I hadn’t. Or maybe he knew but was just as scared as me, so he tried to make it easier to be apart by fighting with me.
Or maybe he loved her now. Maybe I’d blown it.
Everything had fallen apart. My relationship was as messed up as my wedding dress, and Jen had been the one to taint them both.
As my sobs gave way to a thumping headache, I sensed movement outside my car, and I slowly lifted my head. Jen was putting Jayden and Harley into her own car, Harley still covered in paint and crying. Jen’s tears had dried up, and she didn’t have the aura of a person who felt horribly guilty or concerned about the damage caused. Regardless of the dress, she was sure to be facing a bill for the cost of Mitch and Deanna’s carpets, which now looked like they’d been walked over by a bunch of Smurfs and the cast of Avatar. I was surprised she hadn’t come over to make some bitchy comment, but she just got in her car and drove away.
Knowing she was no longer anywhere near Radleigh and Jessica eased a little of my tension, but I still felt like I’d had the life sucked out of me. And I didn’t want to go back to my empty house yet.
Unsure where I was going at first, I pulled out of the driveway and onto the road. I turned on the radio to drown out my thoughts, and focused only on the music until my car brought me to a stop.
I’d found my way to the beach, just a little way from where I used to live with Freya. Since it was only early evening, it was still light and warm, and the gentle breeze whipped my dark hair around my face as I strolled along the soft sand. As always, people were still surfing, or simply hanging out, laughing together. I tried to absorb some of their carefree vibes, and it helped to a degree. More than anything, it was a distraction from real life.
Making a right turn, I headed towards the water, and as I did so, I squinted as I thought I saw someone familiar sitting on the sand, close to the gently lapping waves. Her red hair blew around her head as she hugged her knees.
“Small world,” I said, sitting down beside her.
Bree smiled at the sound of my voice. “This is the place, isn’t it?” she said. “Where you go when something happens and you need to clear your thoughts.”
“Yup.” I pulled my shoes off and let my toes sink into the sand. Beside me, I saw Bree had done the same thing. “How are you doing?”
She opened her mouth to speak then closed it again. After a moment, she sighed. “I don’t know. For a while I think I’m okay, but then, out of nowhere, I’m not.”
“It’s only been a week, babe. Nobody is expecting you to be okay this fast.”
“I expect it of myself. I’ve been through worse, right?”
I shrugged. “Depends how you look at it, I guess. You’ve suffered other losses before, but this one? This one was growing inside you. You can’t really say it wasn’t worse than the others. Just different.”
“But the baby. It was so tiny. Not even fully formed yet.”
“Still a part of you, though.”
My heart clenched inside my chest as I remembered, almost ten years ago, I’d had a similar conversation with myself as I tried to justify having an abortion. There was no justification for it, really. Not for me. I messed up and didn’t want to deal with the consequences. I told myself the things Bree was telling herself. It’s a baby, but it’s hardly formed yet. I had to pretend I didn’t feel anything for the life inside me because I didn’t want it. I didn’t want to want it. I was too young and too selfish. That didn’t stop it ripping out my heart when I went through with the abortion, though. Didn’t stop me hating myself, or hating the guy who got me pregnant for not loving me as much as I loved him. He didn’t love me at all. And I realised I didn’t love myself a whole lot, either. Got to the point where I hated looking in the mirror because I didn’t like the person looking back at me. I wanted to be someone else, somewhere else.
What had really changed between now and then, though? I’d grown up, and I had no problem looking myself in the eye, but that scared kid who didn’t know her future still very much existed inside me. And she was still waiting on the man she loved, not knowing if he loved her back just as much.
“What brings you out here?” Bree asked. “And where’s Jessica?”
“She’s staying with Radleigh tonight. And I’m out here for the same reasons as you. Trying to clear my head. Trying to figure out why things have gone so wrong.”
Bree straightened her legs out in front of her and put her arm around my shoulders. My head rested against hers, and she said, “This year sucks. I started off thinking it would be awesome. Everything seemed to be going well for all of us and then, out of nowhere, crazy happened.”
“Maybe it’s just our turn. Last year it was Freya’s. Nobody has it easy all the time.”
“Seems unfair. We’re doing all we can to create good lives for ourselves, but you never know when something will come along to take it away.”
“I think the key is to keep looking forward. Get through the rough stuff and stay focused on where you’re going.”
“Where are you going?” she asked, raising her head to look at me.
Blowing out a breath, I said, “Match.com?”
For the first time in what seemed like years, Bree laughed out loud, and I chuckled too. “Leah, come on. Radleigh isn’t stupid.”
“Yes he is. When it comes to her, he’s stupid.” After taking another breath, I told Bree everything that had just occurred at Mitch and Deanna’s. W
hen I told her about my dress, she gasped and held my hand tightly.
“Leah, she is the devil. Who the hell does that kind of thing? And why? God, if she wants to stop you marrying Radleigh, there are better ways than wrecking your wedding dress.” She paused and sighed. “I know the one you chose was perfect for you. Totally perfect, actually. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be another that’s equally as perfect. You can get over that. And she’s dumber than she looks if she thinks that’ll be enough to make you call off the wedding.”
“You know what scared me? Radleigh didn’t yell at her. He said nothing about it. Like it didn’t matter that she’d encouraged her kid to do what he did. To ruin my wedding dress. The dress I was supposed to wear to marry him.”
Another surge of anger rippled through me at his apparent lack of care for what had happened. In that moment, I’d barely recognised him. And not only did I not recognise him, he was reluctant to let me. Even when he finally let his eyes meet mine, the barriers were up. He heard me. He understood. But he wouldn’t let me reach him.
She squeezed my hand. “I don’t know what’s going on with him, but you’re right. This doesn’t sound like him. He’d usually rip the head off anyone who hurt you. I think you two need to reconnect. You’ve had your time apart. Now maybe it’s time to find your way back to each other.”
Chapter Two – Radleigh McCoy’s Girl
I thought a lot about what Bree said that night. And while she was right, I also believed Radleigh still wasn’t done thinking. I’d told him what I wanted. Where I stood. It was still on him to tell me what he wanted. Whether he wanted to come home to me.
I didn’t hear anything from him all night or the following day. When I picked Jessica up, Deanna was still seething, and as much as I loved her, I didn’t want to be around that much anger. I stayed for the duration of a cup of coffee, but then I made an excuse to leave and went home. I did make plans to go out with her the next day, though. She wanted my opinion on an outfit for a wedding she was going to – not mine – though really, I thought she just wanted to keep my mind off what had happened the day before.