Decline (Declan Reede: The Untold Story #1) (19 page)

I released the hold I had on my dick. “Oh, shit, sorry. Just . . . oh, fuck. Sorry.”

Raising her hand, no doubt to silence me before I disintegrated into a blubbering mess again, she looked back toward me. “So why did you let this fantastic girl go anyway?”

I didn’t understand where the question had come from.

“You were talking in your sleep. You said something about having a fantastic girl at home. I assume you were talking about . . . Alyssa, wasn’t it?”

I nodded.

“Well, from your tears and your dreams, I’m guessing she’s still important to you. So why did you let her go?”

“It’s a long story.”

Siobhan smiled at me. “It’s a long flight.”

WHEN WE climbed off the plane I gave her my number and told her to call me if she was ever passing through town. Somehow over the course of the twenty-four hour flight we had come pretty close to friendship. I’d certainly felt better for having been in her company. She made me think that maybe, just maybe, I could fix this. That I did deserve to have Alyssa in my life, as a friend at the very least.

The problem was that the feeling of hope she inspired, the thoughts that maybe I wasn’t a complete and utter nut job, only carried me as far as the baggage collection area. Then the truth smashed back into me with no remorse. I really was too screwed up to function. For a long time, I’d been fucked-up, but functional. In the last few months, I couldn’t even do my day job properly. Worse, I was starting to see reminders of Alyssa everywhere I went. I could have sworn the chick who grabbed her luggage from the carousel just before I got there was Alyssa, but when I double-checked, there was a blonde in her place.

It was clear to me that I needed to go home, have a shower and get settled back into whatever sort of life I could carve for myself. If nothing else, I needed to try to push this trip out of my head. I needed to forget about the little girl whose image was seared into my mind, but who was far better off without me in her life.

Most of all, I needed to forget about any chance of having any kind of relationship with Alyssa. I’d fucked up too much, and hurt her too many times. It was no fucking wonder she didn’t even want to talk to me. Just when she’d maybe considered it, I’d fucked it all up again.

It was almost seven at night by the time I got a taxi home. Before I even reached my door, I found something out of place. Resting on my doorstep was a letter, which should have been impossible. I never gave my address to anyone. The team had a post box for fan mail and all of my bills and shit went to a post box that my accountant had a key for. It was easier that way; I didn’t have to do mail. Usually anyone who wanted to contact me direct did so through email or text. There was no stamp on the envelope either, which was another oddity. It meant someone had hand delivered it. I spun on the spot, just in case whoever had left the letter was still hanging around—even though realistically it could have been left at any stage over the last week.

After I flicked on the light in the entryway, I ripped open the top of the envelope and yanked out the paper inside. There was nothing extra written on it, but I realised it was a photocopy of a birth certificate. Phoebe’s birth certificate.

My jaw snapped shut and my teeth ground together when I saw the name printed under “name of father,” but then something else caught my eye and my blood froze in my veins.

I raced inside, hunted down my mobile phone, and grabbed my car keys. It was a twelve-hour drive to Brisbane, but it would still be quicker than ringing the airline and trying to get a flight. Especially considering by the time I made it back to the airport the last flight for the day would have already left. Without stopping to get any new clothes, I threw my suitcase into the backseat of my Monaro.

My heart was pounding in my chest and tears pricked at my eyes as I turned the ignition.

I took two deep breaths to try to steady myself and then I put my foot to the floor.

When I hit the highway, I brushed away the tears that had started to form and floored it past the speed limit. My mind rebelled against what I’d read, refusing to acknowledge it, but it still fucking hurt.

All the while my mother’s voice rang in my mind.
“As if that poor girl hasn’t had it hard enough. I don’t know if you’ll ever really comprehend just how much you hurt her.”

Message received loud and fucking clear
.

CHAPTER NINETEEN: DESTINATION

THE HOURS DRAGGED by as I forced my car through the dark of night up the M1 toward Brisbane as fast as I dared. Despite the weight of sleep on my eyes and the sorrow in my heart, each holding me in a tight embrace, I only stopped for fuel. The only time I slowed was when I came to the stretch of road with a number of fixed speed cameras because the last thing I needed on top of everything else was to have my licence suspended. Not that it mattered anymore. Nothing mattered anymore.

My heart ached for Alyssa, for Phoebe, and selfishly, even for myself.

How did I not know
?

My mind was still stuck on the details of the birth certificate, and I was thankful for the lack of cars on the road. The fact that the name, Flynn Olson, was listed under father’s name had pissed me off when I’d first seen it, but even that wasn’t what compelled me forward. It wasn’t the reason I drove my car as fast as I possibly could in the direction of the one place I’d sworn I’d never return to.

For so many years, I’d felt as if going back would somehow signal failure. Failure to stay away from Alyssa. Failure to live my dreams to the full. Staring at the moonless night, with the darkness completely circling both around the car outside and within my soul, it was crystal fucking clear that the true failure had been
not
going back. Not fucking being there for Alyssa when she’d needed me the most. She’d said those very words before I’d thrown her out in London and in the messages she left on my answering machine. Now, I’d learned the precise meaning of them, and hated myself for letting her down so fucking badly. After hours of being stuck on the plane, and then squeezing myself into the car, every inch of me hurt. The ache that blossomed on the outside of my body was nothing compared to the agony trapped inside though.

For the first time since learning about Phoebe, I tried to put myself in Alyssa’s shoes. She’d been left not only without the father of her child, but without her best friend. How did she cope with that, pregnant and alone?

“Fuck!” I smacked the steering wheel.

Even though I guessed she was never completely alone, because her family would have supported her, it still had to be tough. It was more than I’d ever had to cope with.

I am such a fucking arsehole
.

And then to fucking have to cope with . . . with . . .

My mind shut down, refusing to allow me to think about it. I swiped the tears away again. For the moment, I had to fight the sorrow off. It wasn’t doing shit to help me stay focused on the road. Eventually though, I would have to let the sorrow win—no fucking person in their right mind would be able to cope with shit like this without tears.

More than ever, I longed to talk to Alyssa, if only to understand what happened and why. More than anything, I had to know if it was my fault. If I could have somehow prevented it by being around. If things would have been different.

THE SUN was just cresting the horizon when I crossed the border between Queensland and New South Wales. It was climbing higher in the sky as I drove past the Gold Coast and up through Yatala. I couldn’t believe how much everything had changed and yet somehow nothing had. So much of the highway had moved and shifted, stomping through in a mass of concrete and cutting off so many corners and twists to be just one big expanse of road. Yet all the landmarks I remembered remained unchanged. I wondered if I would find the same thing when I returned home—that somehow everything would be different and yet nothing would.

When I saw the sign for a travel centre along the side of the highway, I pulled in to wash up and change. I really didn’t want to stop until I reached my destination, but it didn’t feel right turning up in my current attire either. I pulled on my team shirt and black pants—it was the nicest outfit I had. It was crushed to buggery having been forced into my suitcase after my failed night out, but it was at least cleaner and more presentable than sweats and a tee.

After dressing, I splashed my face with cold water. When I glanced up, I saw my reflection. Behind the stubble and the bags under my eyes, I looked haunted. The fact remained that I was.

My eyes were still filled with unshed tears. I wondered if they would ever leave, but I wasn’t sure I even wanted them to. The birth certificate had shattered my heart into a million pieces and each piece wanted to have its turn at expressing the grief etched into my very being. Meeting the failure and fear in my own gaze, I was sorely tempted to let go then and there. With another splash of water, I beat the tears back into submission. Turning away, I raked a wet hand through my hair and decided I was as presentable as I could hope to be under the circumstances.

At the attached cafe, I grabbed a coffee and then I was back on the road. My heart pulled me in, dragging me to Browns Plains faster even as I closed the distance. It was almost as if it knew some part of it had been left behind. A fucking bigger piece than I could have ever believed possible.

Finally, after a little over twelve hours on the road, I was within the borders of my home town. The place where I had spent my entire life, save the last four years. The place that would now forever hold a wretched chunk of my heart.

Biting my cheek to hold back the tears that threatened, I moved onward with my mission. I was too late to be useful, too late to change anything, but I wouldn’t budge from my course until it had been run.

I DROVE past the street that would take me to my old house—my parents’ house. My hands started to shake as I edged closer to my destination.

Too late, and yet also far too soon, I arrived.

Parking the car, I tried to take a few deep breaths to steady myself. I didn’t know how I was going to do it. Wasn’t sure I could. I knew I needed to though. There was nothing that could stop me from seeing the evidence of my failure. Not after all this time, not with all my regrets laid bare in my soul. For all I knew, he could have been in a hundred other places, but somehow I knew he wouldn’t. He’d be close to my family; Mum would have insisted. It would have been easier for Alyssa that way too.

Willing my legs to carry me over the final distance, I moved to find my nana’s grave. It was near the back of the cemetery and she’d been buried with plenty of room around her. Mum and Dad had bought a number of plots when Nana had passed, just so that they could all be together in death. My legs were on autopilot as I stepped forward, the line from the birth certificate rolling on repeat through my mind.

As prepared as I was, my heart shattered when I saw what I’d come in search of.

The first thing that captured my eye was the cold, white marble cherub. So tiny. No bigger than the size of a newborn baby. The cherub had his head buried in his hands and white wings extended out from each shoulder—reaching up for the sky.

Carved onto the stone plinth beneath the little angel were two horses. Each the mirror image of the other, they faced inward with their forelegs reared. Each had a name engraved beneath: “Castor,” and “Pollux.”

Underneath the horses was an inscription that made the line of the birth certificate achingly real. I fell to my knees as I saw the words.

“No.” The word was barely a breath. I shook my head as my chest tightened. The grief I’d experienced during the drive was nothing compared to the cold chill freezing my body and stopping my heart.

Even though nothing was different in the world compared to the day before, the little monolith, with the angel perched on top, changed everything. The day before, I hadn’t known about him. I’d been living in a state of oblivion as fucked-up as it had been blissful. I’d had no knowledge of the levels of pain that a heart could endure and yet still continue to beat. Had the keen sting of the agony of truth not been twisted around my body, tightening like a tourniquet, I wouldn’t have thought it was even possible to hurt so much and still be alive.

The twenty-nine words and two dates on the plinth were tangible proof of just how badly I had let everyone down. Of just how badly Alyssa had needed me when I refused to talk to her.

A name: Emmanuel Pollux Reede Dawson.

Two dates: 11th June and 14th June.

And an epitaph:
An angel opened the book of life and wrote down my baby’s birth. Then she whispered as she closed the book, “too beautiful for earth.”

They were all that was needed to make everything final.

They were what marked the grave of my son.

I fell to the ground with a wail as each of the million pieces of my heart let loose their agony in a simultaneous release, rendering me helpless to the waves of grief that battered upon my soul.

My fingers raked at the grass, gripping hard and trying to ground me. Trying to hold myself in place—to stop myself from floating away. I crawled over and placed my hand on the cold marble of the tiny angel. I bent toward it and rested my forehead against the top of his petite head, baptizing him with my tears.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, as I moved to kneel at his side.

They were words I owed him, Emmanuel, a thousand times over. Words I owed Alyssa and Phoebe.

“I’ll tell them too,” I promised. “I swear to you, I’ll tell them until they know how fucking sorry I am.”

Even though I’d never met him, had never even dreamed he’d existed, the agony of having lost my child was unbearable. I had no doubt that my pain was only a fraction of what Alyssa would have suffered.

Had
suffered.

Alone
.

A sob ripped from me and I fell to the ground again.

“I’m so, so fucking sorry, Lys,” I murmured, wishing the words would find their way to her ears.

They will. I’ll tell her. I’ll make her see how truly sorry I am. Somehow.

My gaze lifted back up to the stone angel.
But it won’t fix this
.

All the physical torture in the world would be preferable to the pain ravaging my soul. I would have faced a hundred of Josh’s beatings to avoid the pain. A thousand. Being burned alive at the stake would have been preferable to the fire that consumed my lungs and left me unable to breathe around the ashes in my throat.

Anything would have been preferable to the absolute agony that twisted inside my stomach as I looked at my son’s tombstone. That one line from Phoebe’s birth certificate, “Siblings: Emmanuel Pollux Reede Dawson 11th June (Dec’d),” would be burned into my brain forever.