Love Always, Damian

by D. Nichole King

  She doesn’t answer, and I can guess by her muffled breaths that she’s crying. It’s like mental torture for me, so I try to explain another way.

  “I want to be Lia’s father, and not the kind that calls once in a while, sends a birthday card, and sees her every other weekend and half the holidays. I want to do it right, and if you give me the chance I’m asking for, I want to do it with you, Elle. The three of us—together.”

  Ellie sniffles on the other end, but still doesn’t say anything.

  “I can do this, Ellie. Please.”

  Finally, she sighs heavy into the receiver. “I’m only going to say this once, okay? I transferred to Florida to get away from everything there. To leave all that stuff in my past where it belongs.” Her voice cracks as she continues. “And that includes you. I think it’s best if…”

  Fuck.

  “You don’t mean that,” I say, and I know I’m right because she doesn’t sound like this when she’s confident. “Give me until Christmas, Ellie. I’ll prove to both of you I can change—that I have changed. I’ve got a plan, and I want both of you to be a part of it.”

  “Because you love Lia?” she whispers, her voice breathy and heavy at the same time.

  “Yes, Elle. I love her so much,” I say, half-smiling because maybe I’ve convinced her.

  A few silent moments pass before she says, “Thank you for the offer. It sounds beautiful, Damian, really. And a few years ago I would have accepted it in a heartbeat, but…”

  I know what’s coming; I can hear it in her voice. I back up against a wall. “No, Elle. Don’t do this.”

  She takes a deep breath to hide how upset she is. “I’ll send you pictures. Maybe after things settle down…you can call her sometime.”

  I’m shaking my head as she talks. “Don’t cut me off, Elle. I’m begging you.”

  “I’m sorry. I have to,” she murmurs.

  “You don’t, Elle. I can make this right, I swear to you.”

  “Damian.” The way she says my name makes me wish I were there to hold her and make her understand. “It’s too late.”

  “Don’t say that. It’s never too late,” I plead, my own voice on the edge of a knife.

  “I’m sorry,” she repeats. Her voice is barely above a whisper, letting me know she doesn’t really want to say what she says next. “Goodbye, Damian.”

  “Ell—”

  But she’s already hung up.

  I bow my head, gather the hair on top, and pull.

  “Goddammit!” I yell.

  Because, fuck—

  I missed my shot.

  ~*~

  Ellie

  I end the call, hug the phone to my chest, and squeeze my eyes shut. I hold my breath to push down the urge to cry. I’d imagined him saying he wanted to be with us for so long, and I had to fight myself to not scream yes. He loves Lia, and I love that he does, but he’s irresponsible. Loving her just isn’t good enough, no matter how much I want it to be.

  Still, I don’t want to let him go. It hurt so much, but I had to do it. Hanging on to him was killing both of us.

  I finally suck in air only to blow it out slowly. I’ve waited so long for him to become the man I know deep down he is. Now, it’s time to let go.

  The smart thing to do is move on with Blake. With time, I can learn to love him the way I want to, because he loves Lia and me, and he’s already proven himself to be responsible.

  I roll to my side and pull a pillow into my arms.

  I did the right thing—

  Right?

  Chapter 28

  Ellie

  I feel a little better in the morning. Fantastic, actually.

  Because I’ve made up my mind. I’m sticking to the plan—I’m moving on. I’ve tortured myself enough when it comes to Damian, and I refuse to do it any longer.

  I’m ready to be happy, dammit. Past experience has taught me I don’t find happiness with Damian, and I’m tired of living in those long-gone shadows. He needs to face his ghosts and fight his demons before he’ll ever be able drop the weight he carries. Forgive himself.

  Stop going to the cemetery.

  And until that happens, I’m done putting myself and my daughter in his self-destructive path. I gave him a shot when I left Lia with him; he fired in the dark, and he missed. End of story.

  “Mommy? Are you okay?” my Lia-Kat asks.

  I look up to see her standing in the doorway to my bedroom. Escaped hair pokes out from the French braid I put in last night.

  “I am now. Come here,” I say, holding my arms out to her.

  She shuffles over to me, frowning. Then she stops just out of my reach.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  Blue eyes pour into me like honey, sweet and thick. “Do you think Daddy will come for us?”

  “What do you mean? Like drive here to see you?”

  “No, like come here and take us back home with him. So we can be a family.” Her pouty face slices into me, and I hate the way it makes me feel.

  “Oh, sweetie.” I lean forward to scoop her up onto my lap. “Your dad…he, uh…” I trail off because I have no idea what to tell her. Anything having to do with Damian is complicated.

  “He what?” Lia asks, blinking. Her long lashes partially conceal her irises the same way Damian’s do.

  “He’s had a lot of hard years. You see, a long time ago—”

  “Grandma and Uncle Liam died. Yeah, I know,” she says, and the corner of her lips pulls to the side, revealing a dimple.

  I don’t even try to hide my surprise. “Oh. How did you know that?”

  “He took me to visit them—and Kate.”

  “He did?”

  She nods. “Hmm-hmm. He told me about the symbols on the gravestones, and Kate had a necklace he keeps on his dresser that matches hers. He said it stands for hope, and when she got sick, she never gave up hope because she loved her family. She didn’t give up on the people she loved.”

  “He told you all that?” I ask, amazed she remembers. Then again, I shouldn’t be. She remembers everything.

  “He loves us, Mommy.”

  “Baby, I—”

  “We’re his family,” she says. “Like that girl, he won’t give up on us.”

  I’m at a loss for what to say. That may have been what Kate was like, but Damian? Maybe that was true before he lost everyone.

  But that was then and this is now. And now, Damian’s going to break her little heart when he sinks into his same old pattern of letting pain control him.

  ~*~

  I tuck Lia in and read her a story. One she’s heard a thousand times but loves just as much as the first.

  “Mommy?” she says after a yawn.

  “Yeah?”

  “I love you.”

  I lean down and kiss her forehead. “I love you too, sweet girl. Good night.”

  “Mommy?”

  “Yes?”

  “Did you ever love Daddy?”

  I smooth a palm over her blankets. “I used to,” I finally say. Then I stand up and walk toward the door, hoping our Q and A is finished.

  It’s not.

  “Mommy?”

  I turn around. “Hmm-hmm?”

  “Will you again?”

  I reach for her doorknob to buy myself a few extra seconds. “I don’t know.”

  “Think about it, okay?” she says, and I smile at her grown-up tone.

  “Okay. I’ll think about it. Good night,” I repeat and close the door.

  After a quick shower, I lie in bed and skim through my missed calls. There’s a handful of them, but none from Damian.

  Since he called last night, I’ve thought about nothing else. Just hearing his ringtone and knowing his voice would greet me has my resolve shaking.

  This moment reminds me of that one life-changing scene in the movies where the girl is at a crossroads. It’s one road or the other; it can’t be both.

  Blake or Damian.

  The regrets will be there,
they always are. That’s life. You live with them, learn from them, and get on.

  And the funny thing is, I already made my choice, so it’s ridiculous that I’m sitting here swaying once again. In fact, I made my decision a long, long time ago.

  I tap on his picture and hold the phone to my ear. He answers right away.

  “Hey, babe.”

  I smile at the sound of his voice. The sound of Lia’s and my future.

  “Hey, Blake.”

  ~*~

  Damian

  The first week of senior classes kicked my ass, and the second week wasn’t any better. For the first time since Liam died, I actually have to study—sober.

  It’s a bitch too, because Ellie’s in my head nonstop. I even sent Cassie packing a couple of weeks ago.

  My efforts may be futile, but I’m not giving up yet. If Kate taught me anything, it’s that there’s always hope, and that little moment of hesitation when Ellie said goodbye gives me the sliver I need to hang on.

  I know Ellie, maybe better than anyone, and I know when there’s more she doesn’t say. I used to wake up to her sobs, and a few times, they didn’t come from beside me—they came from Liam’s room. I never went in there, though.

  I think of the time I caught her standing by the window in my bedroom.

  Moonlight burst through the crack in the curtains as she peered outside. She crossed her arms over her chest and hugged herself. Wearing nothing except the white button-up shirt I had on earlier, she looked so sexy, and I was an asshole for wanting to take it off her and lead her back to my bed while she was crying.

  She reached up and wiped a tear from her face. With the light coming in, I saw her bite her lip to hold back another sob. It didn’t quite work, though, and she buried her face in her palms.

  I promised Liam I’d take care of his girl, so I threw on a pair of boxers and walked over to her.

  “Thinking about Liam?” I asked, because I didn’t know of any other reason why she’d be upset.

  Her attention snapped to me like I startled her. “Did I wake you?”

  “Yeah. What’s wrong?”

  She hugged herself tighter, and part of me wanted to pull her against me. I didn’t though, because that was too intimate for the relationship we shared.

  “Nothing. I couldn’t sleep.” She didn’t look at me when she said it.

  “Right. Well, I’m awake now,” I said, and reached out to unbutton her shirt. “I can help you sleep.”

  On instinct, she stepped back a little. Then stopped herself. “I’m not sure if it will.”

  “Oh yeah? It always has before.”

  Her lips trembled, and she averted her gaze from me. Her hair covered her face as she wiped her eyes. When she returned to me, she gave me a tiny smile.

  “Maybe I should just go.”

  I shook my head. “Not until you tell me what that was all about.”

  She stared at me, not saying anything. Pain flashed in her eyes, and I was close to walking away from her so I didn’t have to see it.

  “What are we even doing, Damian?” she finally said.

  “Being there for each other,” I said, not sure where she was going.

  “No, not right now. This whole thing, this…relationship between us.”

  “You want out?”

  She hesitated. “No.”

  “Then I don’t know why we’re having this conversation.” I slipped my hands under her shirt and glided them up her waist. She shivered under my touch, so I undid the rest of the buttons and slid the material off her shoulders. Circled my arms around her and brought her into me, skin on skin.

  I kissed the nape of her neck, and she tilted her head to let me. She swallowed against my mouth.

  I cupped her face in my palms. “Close your eyes,” I instructed, and she obeyed. Slowly, I brought her lips to mine and kissed them. “If you need a reason, Elle, it’s because we understand each other. Because when we’re together, we’re whole.”

  I pull a hand through my hair and gaze over the pile of textbooks on my bed. Somehow, I need to get cracking. I have a ten page paper due at nine in the morning, and if by any miracle my plan to get Ellie and Lia back in my life is going to work, I can’t fail this class.

  Chapter 29

  Ellie

  Blake didn’t push me when he returned. In fact, on the outside, life seemed to go back to normal as if the summer never happened.

  Blake takes Lia to the park or to the beach while I work, and the three of us fall back into our standing Friday night dates at our favorite pizza parlor, the one that serves the most amazing ham and pineapple pizza.

  Other than stolen glances in each other’s directions, we slipped into a semi-platonic relationship. Not what we had before Australia, though, because after sex, there’s no going back to being “just friends.”

  It works because I’m not ready to dive headfirst back into things with him even though I made up my mind that Blake’s the one. Not while Lia’s hung up on Damian.

  My professor let me do a short stint with another research group studying the migration of bull sharks off the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Between the two, she gave me full credit, and I have enough notes to finish my thesis.

  So, at the start of fall semester, I keep my mind busy, working non-stop on the paper that’s bound to take up most of my life. Blake holes himself up in the library or in his apartment writing his as well, and we only emerge during the weekends or for three a.m. Starbucks runs to compare notes.

  It’s a decent distraction, except I’m not sure how long it will hold.

  Talk of what happened between us at Cairns, for now, has been drowned out by statistics, graphs, and temperature patterns. Talk of Damian, however, resumes each night when I tuck Lia in.

  “Did he call today?” she asks.

  I lift the covers up to her chin. “No, sweetie. He didn’t.”

  “Do you think he lost our phone number?”

  “I don’t know,” I answer, and the thought of him deleting it leaves a pang of emptiness in the pit of my stomach.

  “I want to call him tomorrow,” she decides, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “Lia…” I’ve run out of excuses for why we can’t, and I’d prefer not to lie. Cutting him off cold turkey like I did last time is the best option. We’ll both get over him quicker.

  Besides, I told him goodbye, and he seems to have actually listened—which is a first for Damian. It’s strange since he wants so badly to be a part of Lia’s life, but I haven’t heard a peep from him since.

  And I can’t decide if I’m okay with that or not.

  “Lia,” I say again, sliding two fingers down a tendril of her hair. “Damian’s back in school right now too. He’s busy.”

  She blinks, thinking. “Then I’ll leave a message, and he can call back when he’s not busy.”

  I smile at her rationality. “We’ll see, all right?”

  “All right, Mommy,” she concedes.

  “Story time?”

  Lia gives me a My Little Pony book Damian bought her over the summer. He’d packed it at the very top of one of the boxes he shipped to us. She squealed in delight when she saw it, and we’ve been reading from it every night since.

  “Again?” I ask her.

  “Yes, please. It reminds me of Daddy.”

  I lie down beside her and read. Lia’s head rests against my shoulder, and when I say “The end,” she’s already asleep. I close the book, slowly sneak out from under her, and make sure the blankets are in place. She shifts a little before settling into her pillow.

  I kiss her forehead and switch off the lamp. “Good night, my Lia-Kat.”

  Softly, I shut her door behind me. I’m exhausted, but I should stay up for a few hours to work on my paper. I grab the laptop off my bed and sit in the kitchen with a cup of hot tea. Notebooks, reference books, and loose paper clutter the table in no time.

  I have six internet tabs, two Word docs, and a spreadsheet open on my c
omputer. I switch back and forth between them and reach for the hard copies to cross-reference.

  But after an hour, I’ve only typed half a sentence, and I’m not even sure it’s accurate information. I can’t concentrate with thoughts of Damian rolling through my mind. Without thinking, I grab my phone and find his number. Then I stare at it like the digits themselves will tell me what he’s doing and who he’s with.

  “You made this bed, Ellie, now lie in it,” I tell myself out loud.

  Da, dum. Da dum. Da dum. Da dum, dadum, dadum, dadum.

  The theme from Jaws sounds from my phone, startling me. Before it grows in intensity, I answer it.

  “Hi, Blake,” I say.

  “Lia in bed?”

  “Yeah, an hour ago.”

  “Working, then?”

  “Trying to,” I reply, picking up a notebook and flipping through it as if I’d been hard at work when he called.

  “Want some company? I’ll bring Starbucks,” he sweet talks in my ear.

  Ah, Starbucks.

  “Extra foam?”

  “Double shot, just how you like it.”

  “You’ve got a deal,” I say.

  “Great. See you in twenty.”

  Twenty minutes later, Blake knocks on the door. “I come bearing gifts.”

  “I love you,” I breathe out and take the latté from him. Not until after I’ve taken a sip and he’s staring at me do I realize what I said. I swallow and nervously lick my lips. “Thanks for this,” I clarify.

  “Anytime,” he says, his eyes drifting over me the way they did in Cairns.

  “So,” I say to break the tension, “how’s yours coming along?”

  “Blood sample comparisons were a bitch, but I managed. You?”

  “Slow,” I admit. “I don’t have the final reports for the Reef Study, and I need them to analyze body and water temperatures.”

  Blake nods. “Yeah, uh, Hannah said she’d send them by the end of this month, so…”

  “Oh, good.” I shift my weight and avoid meeting his gaze. As I do, I realize the only thing he brought with him was my coffee. “No laptop tonight? Makes it kind of difficult to work.”