“What are you doing?” I removed her hand from my jaw.
“I—I …” Her cheeks flamed. “I just thought you and I could try and be a family again. This is nice. I miss this. I want more of this.”
She avoided eye contact and pursed her lips as if she was offended by my rejection, but I knew better than to believe her act.
“For fuck’s sake, Lilah.” I tossed my half-eaten slice of pizza back into the box. “Why do you do this?”
“Do what?”
“This, deliberately cause shit?”
Her mouth formed an O. “I’m not.”
“Yeah, you are.” I stood up and tracked Max’s whereabouts on the playground, spotting him under the slide. He was pretending to shoot with his Iron Man arm.
“How exactly is me wanting us to be family causing shit?”
“Because we already are a family. You’re my son’s mum, and I’m your son’s dad. We share Max, and that’s a family.” I ran my hand through my hair and looked down at her. “But it’s the only family we’ll ever be. Nothing more than that.”
“Yeah, because of Ellie fucking Mitchell.” She leaned back on her hands, her legs out straight, white jeans on the grass.
“Yes, because of Ellie. She owns my heart. Always has, always will.” I shook my head, annoyed. “But you already know this. You’ve always known it.”
Lilah tilted her head and looked to the sky. She closed her eyes, her long lashes fanning her cheekbones. “Maybe I do. But when Max came along, it was supposed to be different. He was supposed to own your heart instead. And me,” she opened her eyes, “I was supposed to own a piece of it too.”
I swallowed, my throat dry. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt her or get into a fight, but we’d had this discussion before, a few times, and I suspected we were having it again because she felt like causing shit for the sake of causing shit. It was what she did—textbook Lilah—and I’d had enough. It needed to stop once and for all.
“Max and Ellie own my heart, but you never will. No matter what you do or say, that won’t change. Ever.”
She glared at me for the smallest of seconds then looked straight ahead, her jaw clicking from side to side.
“Wow, Connor, that’s—”
“But,” I said, interrupting her, “what you can and are entitled to own is my respect, and my friendship, if that’s what you want. But for that to happen, the bullshit stops here. No more games. No more agendas.”
She didn’t say anything, so I scanned the playground for Max again while she deliberated what I’d said. An older kid ran past him and knocked him over, and my heart jumped into my throat. I took a few steps, ready to race over there, but he jumped back up and brushed his cast down, firing it like a laser in the kid’s direction.
I smiled, my pulse calming, and turned back to Lilah. She’d moved onto her knees and was packing up our pizza boxes.
Sighing, I squatted down beside her to help. “You have so much to offer, you always have. You’re smart, beautiful, and severely dedicated—”
She scoffed.
“You are. But for some reason I can’t figure out, you sabotage your own happiness, and you fuck with mine.”
She paused and looked at me, her dark eyes glassy. “I don’t mean to fuck with your happiness, Connor.”
“Yeah, well you have, and you do. And you’re trying to do it again.”
She blinked but didn’t say anything.
“I’m not gonna let it happen anymore. Enough is enough.”
“So does this mean you and Ellie are a thing again?”
I ripped some grass from the ground and tossed it aside. “No, but we’re gonna be. It’s only a matter of time.”
She stood up, pizza boxes in hand. “I suppose I should say congratulations then.”
“If I thought for one second you truly meant that, I’d say thank you.” I stood up beside her and took the boxes. She was acting like a child, and I didn’t fucking get it. “Why are you so bitter?”
“Because girls like Eloise Mitchell got everything in life,” she hissed. “The happy family. Good grades. A doting boyfriend. She was Little Miss Goody Two-shoes, and she had it all.”
“Yeah, had. Ellie didn’t get everything in life. You saw to that.”
“So did you. Last time I checked, I didn’t get myself pregnant.”
I sucked in a breath and let it out, trying to keep my shit calm. “I’m not saying you did. Clearly, I helped with that. The difference is you deliberately tried to destroy her life. I didn’t. And what’s worse is you’re still trying to destroy it now. Four years on. What the fuck, Lilah? Grow up. Move on. Be happy.” I waved at Max to come back over. I’d had enough and wanted to leave. “But what pisses me off the most is that you’re better than this immature, vindictive shit you pull.”
She spat out a laugh. “Am I?”
“Yeah, you are. I know you are, and so do you. But if you won’t be a better person for yourself, be better for Max. Set a good fucking example. He deserves it.”
My mopey toddler stomped the final steps to within arm’s length, his head falling back to look up at me, his bottom lip pouting.
I pouted back at him. “Time to go, buddy.”
“Don’t want to.”
Lilah ran her hand over his head then tickled his chin. “Say goodbye to Daddy, and Mummy will stay a little longer and push you on the swing.”
His little eyes lit up. “Bye, Dad.” He hugged my leg then ran off toward the playground again.
“Bye, mate.” I waved, chuckling, but he didn’t look back.
“I love him so much,” Lilah said, her voice strained. “He’s all I’ve got, really.” She stepped up beside me, a small smile on her face as her eyes followed our son. “I’m gonna be better. For him and for me.” Swivelling side-on to face me, she crossed her arms over her chest. “But I will say this … don’t let your relationship with her affect your relationship with him, because if it does, I will cause shit.”
I turned to face her too. “That’s the thing, it won’t affect it, because I have room in this crazy heart,” I said, placing my hand on my chest, “for them both.” I pointed at Lilah “There’s even a tiny spot for you.”
She smiled and shook her head. “Even me, huh?”
“Yeah, even you. You’re a part of my life, Lilah. But it’s your choice to be a healthy part or a part that poisons everything it touches, including Max.”
She looked down at her feet then back up at me. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah, okay.”
Chapter Thirty
Ellie
“Where are we going?” I asked Byron, as he zipped up the one and only cocktail dress I’d packed in my case.
He handed me a pair of nude heels. “Just somewhere nice.”
“This nice?” I pointed to the fitted, full-length, black velvet dress I was wearing. “I thought you said it was somewhere local.”
“I did. And, yes, that nice.”
I assessed myself in the mirror. “I just feel a little overdressed.”
Byron placed his hands on my shoulders and turned me to face him. “You look stunning, and you’re not overdressed for what I’ve planned.”
I huffed, still unsure. As far as I knew, there was nowhere this fancy close by. “If you say so.”
“I do. Now, what about me?” He fixed his collar and waggled his eyebrows.
“Very suave, Mr Grayson.”
Tucking a loose curl behind my ear that I’d deliberately left segregated from the bun pinned high on my head, he nodded his approval and kissed the tip of my nose. “Perfect. Let’s go.”
We said goodbye to Mum and Dad and borrowed Mum’s car. She seemed nervous, but I reassured her during our departing hug that Byron was a good driver and that she had nothing to worry about. Mum was the worriest of worrywarts, though, so I found her hand-on-her-heart anxious puppy-dog-eyes demeanour, as we pulled out of the driveway, amusing.
“She
looks so nervous,” I said with a chuckle. “God, she really must love this car.”
Byron gripped the steering wheel. “It’s a nice car.”
I sensed a hint of trepidation in his voice and shook my head. “Not you too? Geez, don’t worry. Just drive like you normally do.”
An awkward silence settled in the car, made even more awkward by the hum of the engine. So I turned the dial of the radio and stopped on a station that was playing a new song by a young American artist called Britney Spears.
“Oooh. I really like this song. Have you heard it?”
He shook his head.
“The opening motif is really clever. When you hear it, you know the song straight away. It’s identifiable. Recognisable.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
I giggled, forgetting my work was practically a foreign language for Byron. “Okay. Um … let me think.” I strained my brain for a similar piece of music that I could use for comparison to help clarify. “A bit like the music in Jaws. Der ne. Der ne,” I said, sounding the eerie first notes of the Jaws theme song. “The repetition of those two notes right off the bat of the song is what makes that piece of music recognisable almost right away. Same as the opening to this song.”
“Oh.” Byron seemed confused, like he always did when I spoke about what I did for a living. It wasn’t that he wasn’t interested. He just didn’t get music like I did.
“And the bridge is great. Actually, the whole song is great. Relatable to teenage girls. And adults, really.”
“What’s it about?”
“Breaking up and then longing for the return of your ex. We’ve all been there.”
“Have we?”
“Well, yeah. Haven’t you?”
“No, not really.”
“Wow. So you’ve never suffered heartache at the hands of a girl?”
“I didn’t say that. I’ve just never regretted a breakup. You break up for a reason whether it hurts or not.”
I narrowed my eyes, trying to wrap my head around the notion. “Riiight.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“Well, no. I mean, yeah … every break up has a reason. I just guess the ‘no regrets’ part is a bit hard to swallow.”
He turned onto Mountain Road, which headed out of town. I frowned. There were no restaurants or shops until we reached Girling Lake.
“I thought you said we were going somewhere local.”
“We are.”
“Oh.”
He glanced over at me and smiled, and there was something unusual behind his grin. “So why is ‘no regrets’ hard to swallow?” he asked.
“Because what you’re basically saying is the relationship until that point was pretty much empty.”
“No, I’m not saying that.”
“But how can you not if there’re no regrets?”
“Because regardless of how wonderful—or not—the relationship was, a breakup is best if a breakup is needed. Why keep a relationship together if one or both parties want to end it? How could you regret that?”
My jaw fell open. His explanation, or justification, sounded so cold and emotionless, but it also sounded highly logical, which was exactly Byron; Mr Black and White—and Khaki.
“Fair enough. I guess.”
He laughed. “Maybe it’s just the businessman in me.”
I laughed too. “Maybe.”
Byron pulled the car into a car park that looked horrifically familiar. “What are we doing here?” I asked, recognising the view of the water catchment.
“I spotted this place when I was searching the area on a map. I thought the view would be nice, especially this time of evening when the sun is about to set.” He smiled, parked the car, opened his door, and got out.
My body went stiff, my palms sweaty, and I sat rooted to my chair. Memories of the last time I was here, when Connor told me Lilah was having his baby and we both said goodbye, rushed to the forefront of my mind. I hate this place. Why did he bring me here?
Byron murmured, “shit” and jogged around to my door, opening it with an impressed grin. He offered his hand, so I took it and stood up, my stomach churning as I smoothed down my dress.
“We’re definitely overdressed,” I explained, my voice dry.
“Nonsense. You can never be overdressed.”
“Ohhh yes you can.”
Taking my hand in his, he led me to the edge of the car park and onto a gravel path that overlooked the sparkling water of Northills Dam. “I was right, it’s beautiful up here,” he said, glancing in my direction.
I nodded but only saw ugliness. Ugly trees. Ugly dirt. Ugly trash. Ugly memories. It was all too raw and unsettling, and I needed to leave. Surely, this was just a pit stop for where he really was taking me.
About to ask if we could leave, Byron stepped in front of me and took both my hands in his, a jittery twitch on his otherwise chiselled, stoic face. “Elle, I’ve brought you here because it’s close to where you grew up: a place I know you love and miss deeply. I wanted you to feel comfortable and at home for when I asked you this very important question.” He slid his hand into his pocket and pulled out a small velvet box.
A cold dread seized me. Oh no.
“I know we haven’t been together all that long, but in the time we have shared, I’ve come to realise that you’re exactly the person I want by my side through everything I’m set to face and endure in life. You’re kind, compassionate, intelligent, and adaptable. You complement what I am and what I strive to be.” He flipped open the lid, his teeth bright and white and almost as blinding as the gigantic diamond ring wedged into the ivory, satin pillow.
My hands shot to cover my mouth, my eyelids wide apart, almost to the point of pain.
Byron reached for my left hand and gently pulled it toward him. I fought his pull, a small tug of war, and he laughed and shook my hand, loosening it up.
My hand complied and fell limp.
“Eloise Mitchell,” he declared, sliding the ring onto my finger, “will you marry me?”
Chapter Thirty-One
Ellie
I stared at the ring then at Byron, and then at the ring again. A hint of black tattooed ink from the underside of my wrist drew my full attention, so I rotated my arm just a little, and my eyes locked on the heart. Connor’s heart. And I swear it pulsed a beat.
“I … I’m sorry, I can’t.”
Blinking back tears, I quickly removed the ring and gently placed it in his hand. Nothing about his proposal felt right: the timing, the location, what he’d said, the ring … him. It was all horribly wrong, as if I were walking into a trap or falling under a spell I was unaware had been cast. I’d never been proposed to before, but I knew it wasn’t supposed to feel like this. And I knew I couldn’t accept what he was offering and live an even bigger lie than what I’d already been living.
“I don’t understand.” He closed his hand over the ring and looked up at me, all hope and joy now vanished from his face. “What did I do wrong?”
“Nothing,” I lied. Clasping his arms, I pulled him to his feet. “You did nothing wrong. I’m just … I’m not ready to get married, Byron. It’s not even on the cards for me.”
“But I thought—”
“You thought wrong.”
Turning around, I headed for the car, my stomach weak, my balance unsettled.
“Where are you going?”
“I have to leave this place. I can’t be here any longer.”
“Why?”
“Because I had a bad experience here when I was younger.”
“Shit.” He jogged after me. “I’m sorry, Elle, I didn’t know.”
“I know that, but please, can we go and talk somewhere else. I really don’t want to be here any longer.”
He reached out and tentatively touched my arm. “Of course. Let’s go.”
We both climbed back into the car, and Byron pulled out of the car park. “Maybe you should suggest where we can go.”
&n
bsp; “At the bottom of the hill, turn left. There’s a park there.”
“Okay.”
Neither of us uttered a single word as Byron drove to the park and cut the engine, and as I stared out of the windscreen, dusk turning the sky an array of peaches and purples while families played on the playground or threw balls and sticks to happy, bounding dogs, I felt unbearably awful. His proposal had been an express train I hadn’t seen coming, and I’d stepped right out in front of it and was knocked clean off my feet.
“Do you want to get out?” he asked, sucking in a deep breath.
“Um …” I glanced down at my dress and then met his eyes. “No. We’d stand out like sore thumbs.”
He nodded and rested his elbow on the door trim, his chin on his knuckles, his eyes dead ahead.
He looked utterly defeated.
Guilt tugged at my chest. This man, this lovely man, had just asked me to marry him, to spend the rest of our lives together, and I’d said no. I’d turned what was supposed to be one of the most memorable days of his life into an unexpected explosion, rejection in its purest form, and I wanted to curl up and die.
“Byron, I’m so sorry. I really am. I didn’t mean to—” My words cut short when my eyes settled on a little boy with midnight hair, sliding down the slide, a plaster cast on his arm. Is that Max? I squinted. Yes, it has to be.
Scanning the park for Connor, I found him and Lilah both sitting under a tree, eating pizza, just as she leaned closer, touched his face, and kissed him.
I choked and coughed until I was gasping for air.
“Are you okay?” Byron reached out and patted my back.
“Yes, I just need my asthma pump.” I fished it out of my clutch and sucked in two puffs, taking deep breaths until I could once again breathe. “Sorry. I’m such a mess tonight,” I said, bursting into tears.
“It’s okay, Elle. This is all my fault. I should’ve listened to your dad when he said he didn’t think you were ready.”
“YOU ASKED MY DAD FOR PERMISSION?”
“Of course I did.”
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