Rags 2 Pitches: A Secret Baby Sports Romance (19 page)

Kayla

I took a deep breath and slowly sipped my wine. I wished that he hadn’t moved so close to me. I was feeling a little light-headed. Not as much as before, but enough to know that I’d had a bit too much food and maybe wine at this moment in time.

I hadn’t touched any alcohol in years, because Hannah was very strict. She bought all the food that I needed, and she drove with me or had someone pick me up anytime I went on a trip. She never gave me money. At first it felt great being taken care of and never having to worry about paying for things. But, after a few weeks, it became clear that my lack of cash and freedom were to keep me prisoner. Even when I was eight months pregnant, I still had to go to the gym, watch the other girls fight, and predict who would win at the next tournament.

“I’m not used to drinking wine. It’s been a long time,” I explained as I took another gulp, trying to avoid his strong scent. He must have brought clothes too or maybe Reg had gotten them for him. He had changed into a white shirt and the jeans from last night. I used to love that look on him, especially when he hadn’t shaved and had a bit of stubble. It used to tickle me.

His hair was a bit longer than I remembered. Strange, I never thought it would suit him, but he still looked the same, whereas I looked a complete mess. I wasn’t exactly big to begin with but, with my strict diet and fitness regime, I had worn away. Eating too much and being able to indulge in food and drink again made me feel whole. Even if it wasn’t in the best type of circumstances.

I wanted him to hold me.

To tell me that everything would be alright.

That he still loved me and would keep me safe.

Instead, he turned my chair around with one hand just as I was about to grab the glass of wine once again.

“Talk.”

He used his hand to turn my face so I was looking directly at him. I didn’t want to, not when he was so mad. His eyes were so bright, they appeared to be almost on fire. I knew there was no way around it. I had to tell him the truth. How he felt about me after was something I’d just have to live with. I saw the way Sydney looked at him. The way he looked at her.

They were complete strangers, yet there was love in their eyes.

She had asked me a couple of times about ‘Daddy’.

I had joined a baby group, and she had seen mommies and daddies together and asked one time if Willy was her daddy. I laughed at the idea of it, but her question was innocent and she knew nothing better at the time.

“Where do I start, Chase? What can I say?”

That was a cop out. I was emotionally blackmailing him for all my mistakes. But they weren’t mistakes; I was protecting him and her. I never knew it would end up like this.

He shook his head. “Don’t get me fucking mad. Speak, woman. Let’s start with the night you left. The cameras show you were at the bar. Then, the next thing at the ATM, then poof, gone up in smoke.” His voice was stern and I knew there was no way of getting around it.

“I saw my dad in the bar and—”

“But how is that possible when your dad is dead? You said he died from lung cancer.” He put his hand in his hair, completely baffled by my statement.

It was a lie, one Mom said would stop people ever questioning about my dad. “He died from cancer. No one ever wants to talk about cancer, so that is the last you will ever hear on the subject. No one likes talking about the past.”

She was right. Even in school, whenever I said those words, the conversation would always stop there. No one would ever mention it again.

“It was a lie. Mom said that if we told people cancer, they would never ask.”

I turned to take the wine and sipped it some more. He did the same thing and poured the rest of the bottle in both glasses. He moved my chair closer to his, but that made me want to do anything but talk.

“I saw him in the bar and I panicked. So, I grabbed what money I could and left. Living on the streets, I found out I was pregnant—”

He sighed. “You need to look at me when you speak, and you need to tell me why both you and Mary go around saying your dad died from cancer.”

I wanted to get up and walk away, but I couldn’t without Sydney and, if I did, I wouldn’t have any money - or Chase.

I didn’t know what to do.

My eyes darted around the restaurant but, before I could even contemplate my next move, Chase puffed in my face like a dragon. “Don’t you even think of walking out on me again. If you loved me, which I think you did, you won’t.”

He had me there.

“I did love you. I still do.”

I was trying to reach out to him, to tell him that I still had feelings for him and that none of what had happened in the past, or even today, was me trying to hurt him. Make him see that I was the same person that he fell in love with, but I had made some bad decisions, which had felt right at the time.

But having to face him, having to tell him the reasons why, was the one thing that I was trying to avoid all along, and there I was, telling him the truth, and I was scared. I was fucking petrified.

“Chase, I’m so damn scared that when I tell you the truth, when you know why I left, you’ll hate me.” I pleaded with my mind, body, and soul for him to have an open mind.

Instead he just spat back, “Too late for that. I hate you already.”

I dropped my head, knowing that there was no way to get through to him. If he called the authorities, I was pretty much dead. Dad was alive and looking for me. He would see to it that I was dead one way or another. He couldn’t have been looking for me to congratulate me on getting into college.

There could only be one reason he wanted me, and that was to make sure I was dead.

I boldly faced Chase. “Mom and I tried to kill my dad, and that night, the night I ran away, it was because he fucking found me.”

The words were ringing in his ears. The look of contempt was removed, replaced by a look of concern.

“You’re a murderer. Why would you want to kill him? What could he have done that was so bad? That made you want to kill your own father?”

I had expected him to walk out. To tell me that he never wanted to see me again and to leave Sydney behind. Now, he was doing the unexpected, and I didn’t know how to react.

“You saw me in the fight, right?”

He nodded, speechless, though he tried to open his mouth and speak.

It was a silly question, but one that I needed to ask to make my point.

“That was my mom and I with my dad for years. He used to hit me like that. Not with a hand, but with a fist. Or a kick. Or whatever he happened to have in his hand at the time.”

“So you fucking leave. You don’t fucking try and kill him.” He stood up and bent down every time he spoke., trying to make sense of it all.

I had disgusted him once again, because this time he went back to doing what he had before. He stopped looking at me.

“You and I, upstairs now.” He pointed in my direction and spoke to me as if I was a naughty schoolgirl who needed to be punished. What he didn’t know was that our reason would be clear once I told him the whole truth.

As I stood up and swiftly sat down again, I spat, “Not if your dad is a cop!”

Now, he was the one in shock. The one who was left speechless yet again. He waved to the waiter. I took the key for the door off the table, and I felt sick, uncertain whether to leave or wait for him. It was one thing to live a nightmare of a life; it was another to tell the one you love the truth about your past.

Chase

“Sir, can I help you?” the waiter asked me once again. I couldn’t even speak. Kayla had just told me that she’d killed her old man. He hadn’t died of cancer. She had done it with the help of her mom, or maybe it was the other way around.

Who was this woman that I was crazy in love with?

“Who are you?” I whispered, ignoring the waiter. My heart was pounding, my mind racing not only at the fact that she lied, but the idea that she had tried to kill someone.

Not just anyone.

Her dad!

“I mean, how the …”

Before I could finish my sentence the waiter made his presence known by clearing his throat and smiling. Poised. Perfect. As if he was used to dramas. He knew how to behave. Which was something I needed to adopt right now.“Charge it to the Presidential Suite,” I replied flatly. Dismissing him out of my sight. Because, I needed answers. Right away.

He nodded as he quickly collected the glasses. My fists were clenched as Kayla got up swiftly and headed towards the elevator. I didn’t hesitate to grab her by the arm. This time, I calmed down. She had tears flooding down her cheeks, and she tried to wipe them with her one free hand. Her arms and practically every piece of her body must have been still hurting from the fight.

The woman I loved was not a murderer.

“You’re not one of those crazed women that likes killing people are you?”

She laughed with tears in her eyes, “No, no…” she repeated it over and over again. Trying to convince me that she was innocent.

I would have seen her as that kind of person from the moment she told me that she loved me and wanted to be with me.

She was looking at me for reassurance.

How could I give that to her?

She just told me that she’d tried to kill her dad, and I was confused and still angry from the lies that had been told. The truth, the story that I needed to hear, would be the only thing that could take this away. It would all make sense if we talked.

I pressed the button for the elevator, ignoring her pleading eyes. My heart was still racing, trying to make sense of it all. But, I remembered what Reg had said. Kayla must have been running from something.

The answer was clear: she was running from a dead man, who was really alive.

I whispered in a voice that I didn’t even recognize, “I’ll calm down, but only if you’re honest with me.” I couldn’t face her. Even if she didn’t go on killing sprees. She had just told me that she had tried to kill her dad. She wrapped her arms around me.

“I’ll be that from now on. I promise.”

I should have pushed her away. Listened to the story and then decided, but there was sincerity in her voice. It gave me comfort for a split second and, as she looked up at me, I knew that she would tell me the truth.

It should have made me feel better. But, something made me think that it wouldn’t. Kayla had still taken my daughter. Had her without my knowledge and, if all this hadn’t happened, if the old man hadn’t given Sydney to me, would Kayla have ever told me about Sydney?

Would she have kept her to herself?

I wanted to kiss her. Hold her and tell her that everything would be alright. But, as the elevator doors opened, I found myself, peeling her arms off me. And I walked inside the elevator and choked, “You can do the talking. I’ll listen, and then we can take it from there.”

That was all I could give her for now. I couldn’t make any fake promises. She had never trusted me before. I wasn't sure if I could trust her right now.

***

“Dad wasn’t always like that.” She sighed as she sat down on the sofa. The room had been cleaned, and the living room sofa had been made up again and was no longer a bed. The spare bed that was moved in had been removed.

I got us both a soda from the minibar and sat next to her on the sofa as she began to tell me the events which had led to her wanting to kill her old man. I needed to be completely sober and alert for what she had to tell me.

Some part of me felt like this was a joke. That someone would pop up with a camera and say that I had been pranked. But, I knew that would never happen. When she first left me, I’d wished for that. That it was some prank and none of it was real.

But, there was no denying that she’d had my daughter.

For two years she had never tried to contact me.

Two years, I had missed out on her life.

No matter what had happened to Kayla, she had taken that away from me. And there was no turning back.

“He used to be loving and kind. You know, the typical Dad that you would do stuff with, that was what I used to tell myself.” She smiled as she spoke about him, reliving the memories in her mind. But her face changed. “Then his partner died during a bust. Dad blamed himself at first, and then he blamed us.”

That made no sense. “Why would he blame you for his mistakes? Busts went wrong with cops all the time. There was no need to take it out on the family.”

She stopped to look at me. As if she had been woken up from a bad dream.

“I… I don't know.”

It wasn’t important. She was telling me what had happened and I had interrupted her.

“Go on… It doesn’t matter anyway.”

She sighed as she continued, avoiding eye contact, “Mom used to work as a risk analyst for one of the top firms. There was a chance for her to get a promotion. I had gymnastics practice, and she was supposed to pick me up. They had a lead back in the station. This bust. This job was big. A case Dad had been working on for years.”

She looked so vulnerable, the anger boiling inside of me was cooled as I finished off my soda. I wanted to be angry with her, but I couldn’t help but hold her in my arms as she spoke. Her head rested on my shoulder and then she continued to speak.

“Dad got a call from the coach and then, because of that, he was late for the bust. You see why he blames us?”

I shook my head and lifted her head to face me. She still didn’t get it.

“Are you trying to justify his frustration, because he missed a bust? God, Kayla, he used to beat you up. His own daughter.”

I thought about Sydney and being so angry that I would raise a hand to her. I knew that I couldn’t win the father of the year award. After all I didn’t know the one thing about parenting, but I did know that beating a child up wasn’t right. Surely she could see that?

“He missed the bust. What you are talking about is something that happens to every kid.” I tried to reassure her. But, it didn’t seem to work.

She smirked. “Did it ever happen to you as a kid?”

I shook my head. “Course not. My mom never worked and, even then, she sometimes used to get the driver or a maid to pick me up. Seriously, it comes with being a parent. You just can’t always be there. I don’t get how this justifies him blaming you?”

Maybe it was something she had told herself as a kid. That what her dad was doing was fair, because she had to be picked up from gym practice.

I wasn’t listening. She moved her head, as if she was tired of trying to explain it to me. As if what he did made perfect sense to her.

Kayla stood up and walked around.

“Look, he missed the bust. Shit, it all went wrong… I don’t know how, or why or the details of it all. All I know is his partner got killed. Because I was late.”

Then, it hit home. She was blaming herself, not so much for him beating her, but mainly for his partner dying. I had come across a couple of cops, parents of my friends at college. They always seemed to be close to their partners.

“This partner, did you know him?”

She smiled, “He was like a father to me…. his death hit us all.”

Yes, in more ways then one. Her dad took it out on her.

“That was when Dad started to drink. Hard.”

I reached out and took her head. Kayla was pacing the room as if she was trying to make sense of it all. The anger that was inside of me, somehow was transmitted into her. She was reliving her nightmare.

I could have told her to stop.

Waited until she calmed down.

But, I didn't want to. She’d taken my child away from me. Ran away, and I needed to know the reason why.

She sat back next to me on the sofa, “He went to counseling and made out that he was fine.” She laughed cynically. “He just got better at hiding his frustration, and besides, by then he had started to take it all out on Mom.”

This sounded like a typical home battering case; women would excuse their husbands for beating them and think that if they got better, then things would change.

“Why not leave? “

That was when she started to shake her head and she took a deep breath,

“Mom tried to report it so many times. The paperwork got torn up. Can you believe Dad was so bold with beating her? It was like a statement.”

“What do you mean?” I said none of this made sense. She bowed her head and then lifted it again.

“Okay, so sometimes he would hit me in the face, stomach, or kick me in the back or something. With Mom he went all out. It was kind of like he was saying to her, I’ve beaten you up. Everyone can see I’ve beaten you up, and no one is going to do a thing about it.”

I shook my head. This thing was all messed up.

“What a bastard!”

She snuffled. “He was a bit more than that… I think the last time he sent Mom to the hospital was when she decided enough was enough. She had been to the precinct a couple of times and was laughed out of there. I remember one time Grandma took her out of state to another precinct. Guess what happened?”

I sighed. “Nothing.”

This time she got up and started pacing again with the words just flooding out of her. I needed to hear them. I wouldn’t interrupt. I needed to make sense of it all. Because, so far none of it was making any sense.

“She was completely broken. But someone or something turned her around. She came up with a plan. To poison him slowly and surely. Then, she staged our deaths with his; it all seemed so perfect at the time. She told me to play along and, if she wasn’t there, to make sure that I didn’t provoke him in any way. She told me that it would be taken care of and I just needed to be patient for a little while longer. Mom never told me when it would happen until the week before.”

Kayla sat next to me on the sofa. She was talking like a sinner at church ready to confess all her sins in exchange for redemption.

“It made perfect sense. Mom felt like she had nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. What else could she do?”

She waited for me to respond. Maybe she needed me to tell her that it was all right. That they’d had to kill him. How else could they escape?

“Sure, you had no way out.” I nodded as clarification.

I was practically speechless. I tried to think of myself in that situation, knowing that the only way out was death.

“So, how did you get away?”

“I don’t even know the details of it all. We got new identities from someone on the force who knew that Dad was doing wrong. It was almost as if Mom kept me in the dark on purpose about most of the stuff. When I did bring it up, all she would say is, ‘Don’t talk about the past. .’” She shrugged, saying, “So that’s exactly what I did. She faked our deaths. Something about us in our car and having an accident and it catching fire. How they went about it, I have no idea. All I knew was we were having dinner, waiting for Dad to fall unconscious. We sat counting down the time. Then, we went out the back. One of the guys on the force gave us our passports. We went to a motel, dyed our hair, and I became Kayla and she became Mary.”

The room was still as we both sat on the sofa. Neither of us knew what to say.

It wasn't a story; she was talking about her own life.

One that she had kept hidden.

I knew the truth, and why she had been running back then. Did I feel a sense of comfort?

Not really.

Did having all the answers make everything better?

Far from it.

There was one piece of the puzzle missing: the night she left Stanford. The time she told me that she was studying, and the next day she was gone.

What happened?

“You saw him that night in Stanford, and then what?”

She blinked a few times as if she was in a different world. “That was when I realized he was alive. At first, I panicked thinking he had Mom too, but then I remembered being a kid and always going on about going to Stanford.”

I nodded. “So you think that’s how he found you?”

“Not by name, but the Employee of the Month photo at the bar would have confirmed that I was there. I think he was looking at it, or heading towards it when I saw him. Either way, I knew I had to get the fuck out of there.”

That was your dad, but I was fucking there Kayla. I thought you knew that.

“So, why did you not come to me when you saw him at the bar in Stanford? Why run? Especially knowing you were carrying a baby?”

I didn’t want to guilt trip her too much, I never said our baby. I just said
a
baby. She held my hand and whispered, “You think I left because of Sydney? I never knew, Chase. You must believe that by the time I figured out I was pregnant, I was too late for the abortion. I just saw him.”

Wooh, an abortion. She was going to kill my baby and not even discuss it with me? I needed a fucking break. A cold shower. Anything to calm down. Because, I was mad, fucking angry.

“Kayla stop. I need to go to the bathroom. Just wait here. Don’t go.”

She shook her head.

Maybe my face was red.

Or maybe my clenched fists showed her that I needed a break. Besides, I wasn’t asking for permission as I got up and headed to the bathroom. I couldn’t look at her. Even as I heard her whisper, “Sure.”

***

This wasn’t the way that it was supposed to go. I thought that she would tell me that she made a mistake and beg for my forgiveness. She got into Stanford for crying out loud. One of the most prestigious colleges in the country.
Yet, as she spoke it was as if I didn’t know her at all. She spoke like a child. Her actions were of a person that had no sense.