The NSC Boxset: Heart of Stone (24 page)

Pulling away from Jay, I looked at him, “I have to talk to him Jay. I won’t be long and then we’ll talk. I promise.”

He nodded his head. “Sure, go on, I’ll wait here but I’m watching him,” he reassured me.

“He won’t hurt me, Jay,” I told him softly, then ran out to catch Nate.

Flying out of the door to strange looks from other diners I saw him at his car, one fist clenched in his hair as the other braced the car roof.

“Nate!” I ran over to him but he didn’t turn. “I was going to tell you but I couldn’t find the right time,” I appealed. He stood silently facing away from me as I gulped, tears starting to flow, “Please, Nate?”

He opened his car door. “I can’t even look at you right now, Liv.” All his anger and devastation was communicated in the hushed tone of his voice.

He climbed in the car and sped off, leaving me stood alone in the car park, utterly destroyed.

As I sat back down at the table with Jay he took both hands in mine. “Mum?” I raised my devastated face to his. “My Dad?” I nodded slowly, unable to motivate my body to do anymore. “He didn’t seem very happy to meet me,” he laughed nervously and my heart wept for him.

“Oh Jay, sweetheart. He wasn’t angry at you, he’s sad and confused that I kept you from him for nineteen years.”

He nodded and squeezed my hands. “I suppose he doesn’t know that you have told me everything about him, how great he is and how he would have been a wonderful father to me? How you loved him so much you didn’t want to destroy his ambitions?”

I had made sure that as Jay grew up, he knew every wonderful thing about Nate and that it was my decision to keep him secret; that his Dad would’ve loved him more than anything.

“I thought I was doing the right thing Jay, but now I don’t think I did,” I admitted desolately. “I should have told him about you, about how wonderful you are and how proud you make me, sweetheart. You have supported me for your entire life, even when James was horrific to you. I’m so sorry Jay, for everything you’ve had to go through in your childhood.” I was guilty for so many things, mostly with Jay. I should never have let him grow up without his father and vice versa.

“Mum, you have nothing to be sorry for. You did your absolute best for all three of us, especially given the situation you were in. You went through our childhood hiding all your fucking bruises, your pain and your heartache just so we were happy. You are the most unselfish person on this planet. Don’t you dare let Nate tell you any different. Me, Erin and Matt all love you immensely and it’s because of how you are and everything you do that has grown that love in us. Whatever happened in our lives, all three of us have grown up healthy, respectful and happy and that’s all down to you. Be proud of who you are, Mum,” he pleaded. “Because we are proud of you.”

He smiled positively as he clenched my hand tightly. “Come on, let’s get you home.”

Jay followed me home and stayed with me for a few hours. As he was leaving he hugged me tight. “Are you sure you don’t want me to ring Auntie Beth to come round?” he asked for the fourth time.

“No Jay, honestly I’ll be fine. I’m gonna have a bath then have an early night.”

He smiled and walked to his car. “Let me know when
Daddy
wants to talk to me and I’ll come back down.”

God! How I loved my son. He took everything in his stride. When he had been sixteen he’d had a bad car accident with some friends and the result had given him a scar running down his face but even that hadn’t fazed him. When the doctors gave him the mirror he had just shrugged and said it gave him a bad boy look.

With a final “love you” he drove off, back to his life at university.

Returning into the house I sat on the couch, contemplating the day’s events, recalling the look on Nate’s face that had shattered me. I had stupidly fantasized that when he met Jay, he would have embraced him and loved him straight away, ecstatic to the fact he had a son. How wrong was I?

I slowly climbed the stairs and went into my bedroom, opened my wardrobe and retrieved the large box secured at the back.

Sitting on the bed I removed the lid, sighing at the smell that always made me sad and happy all at the same time. So many emotions coursed through me with the contents of this box. I ran a finger over the items; slowly taking each one out and reflecting over everything the objects meant to me.

With lots of tears I gently placed the items back inside, closed the lid and ran my fingers over it. They had been with me for over nineteen years and now finally; it was time to be handed to their rightful owner.

Chapter Eighteen

IT WAS 8:15PM when I pulled up to the large gates. Winding my window down, I punched in the code and drove up the driveway, pulling to a stop in front of the great house.

Climbing from Betty, I picked up the box and walked up the steps to the front doors. The door was ajar and I presumed he must have seen me coming and opened it for me, was that a good sign?

Walking through the door I couldn’t see or hear him. I placed the box on the table in the entrance hallway and walked into the kitchen in search of him.

“Well, well, well! I wondered how long it would take you,” he slurred from behind me.

I spun round to face him. He was stood, leaning against the kitchen door frame, his eyes hooded and blurred with a nearly empty bottle of whisky in one hand and a glass tumbler in the other. “Nate?” I frowned. “Are you drunk?”

“Well aren’t you a clever girl.” He grinned sickly then scoffed. “But then again I would say you are incredibly fucking stupid! Wouldn’t you, Liv?” He snorted. “Actually I think I’m the fucking stupid one. I was actually worried about you Liv, when I saw the text from Jay. Ha! I thought Jay was short for James and that he was meeting you and blackmailing you to go back to him or sleep with him . . . fucking stupid.” His voice raised a level and I glared at him.

“You read and deleted Jay’s text? And how the fuck can it have been James when he’s in prison, Nate?”

He pushed his body off the frame and wobbled towards me. I backed into the worktop, my heart pounding. He huffed and regarded me. “Even after everything you’ve done, I’m not gonna fucking touch you, Liv. Do you think that little of me?” His brow creased and he drew his head back. “Oh yeah, I forgot, you
DO
think that little of me,” he spat, laughing harshly as he wobbled to one of the stools. After trying to sit on it and missing twice he gave up and leant on the island instead.

“Nate, I love you, you know I do,” I tried, my courage in what I came here for diminishing by the second.

He snorted and took a large pull on the bottle, completely disregarding the glass and draining it. He looked at me, then threw it across the room where it shattered into pieces. His body spun as he hurled it, he had to grab onto the counter to steady himself. “How could you, Liv? Why? Why?” he garbled, his blurred eyes on me. “How could you do that to me? You’ve denied me the most precious thing in the world! Why, Liv?”

He shook his head, stood upright as best he could and walked towards a cupboard, opening it and claiming another bottle of whisky.

I walked towards him. “Nate, please don’t drink anymore. You’ve had enough,” I pleaded, reaching for the liquor but he snatched it away.

“Don’t you fucking dare. I need it to forget! Forget how much of a fucking bitch you really are!” he hissed. I gasped at his harsh words. He laughed at my intake of breath. “What, Liv? Don’t you think you’re a bitch? Because I am pleased to tell you that you excel at being a bitch.”

He walked towards me again. “Nineteen fucking years you took from me Liv, nineteen
bastard
years I missed out on being something I’ve wanted to be for so long.”

He carried on towards me and I stepped back. “I’ve wanted to tell you for so long Nate, but I couldn’t find the right time or the right bloody words.”

He raised his eyebrows. “When did you find out you were pregnant?”

I looked away, worried about his reaction. “The day before you left for Edinburgh,” I murmured.

He stalked towards me again. I was backed up against the wall as he came in close, his strong intoxicating breath in my face. “The day before I left? The day we had the picnic at the lake?” he quizzed, his voice higher. He narrowed his eyes as I nodded slightly. His fist skimmed my cheek as it smashed into the wall alongside my head, punching a hole in the plaster.

Recoiling, I sucked in a breath as my legs began to tremble and a tear slipped from my eye. “
NATE!
” He was frightening me now, in the back of my mind I knew he would never hurt me, however he was so drunk I wasn’t sure if he knew what he was doing.

He whirled round and walked away. “Do you know how much you have fucking hurt me? Knowing that you knew you were pregnant with my fucking son . . .
my fucking son,
” he added quietly. He opened the new bottle and took a long swig, turned back to look at me and leant back against the island. “Why didn’t you tell me that day?”

I stepped forward then thought better and moved back to the wall. “I didn’t tell you because you were so excited Nate, about your new job, your new life. It was everything to you, all you’d worked for and if I told you the truth you wouldn’t have gone. I loved you too much to let you ruin your life. I loved you enough to live without you.”

He laughed hard. “
YOU LOVED ME TOO MUCH?
That’s a fucking laugh.”

He was pissing me off now; he wasn’t listening to me, to what I was trying to tell him. “I couldn’t do it, Nate! I’m sorry, okay! We were kids; you were too young to be a father. Hell! I was too fucking young to be a single mother but I did it for you! I made the biggest mistake I’ve ever made, and for nineteen years I’ve had to live with the fact that I kept a son away from his father so that
YOU COULD LIVE YOUR DREAMS, NATE!
”

His glass followed the bottle and smashed against the fridge door. He stood up, shaking fiercely. “But you didn’t give me the fucking choice to choose, did you? Because I know what I would’ve chosen Liv, but you took that choice from me.”

He was repeating the same thing and we were getting nowhere so I decided to leave, I needed to let him calm down so he would listen to me but as I walked towards the door, he darted across the kitchen and grabbed my arm, spinning me round to face him.

“I have missed out on my only son’s life Liv, the only child I’m ever going to have and you took that away. I should have been his father; I should have been there when he said his first word, his first step, his first birthday and his first day at school, and even his first fucking shave and sex talk should have been my responsibility, Liv. Do you understand? I’ve missed everything and I’m never going to get that back!” he yelled, spit flying from his lips.

My heart clenched for him but he still wasn’t realising why I had done it. “Do you think it’s been a fucking breeze for me Nate? I was twenty one, pregnant and frightened to fucking death when you left.
WHEN YOU FUCKING LEFT ME!
I had to bring him into this world alone. I fucking needed you to hold my hand when the pain became too much! I needed you so many times to help me raise him. The endless nights without sleep because he was teething or ill, the times when he was naughty and I was the horrible mummy, the times when he fucking cried for you when James had beaten his mummy to within an inch of my life and he told me to fetch his Daddy to save us,
for you, his Daddy, Nate!
The time when he’d had a bad accident and I thought he was gonna die. I needed you then to drag me through those desperate and fucking petrifying dark days when I thought he’d never pull through.”

He was staring at me, his eyes fixed in my face. “Yes it was my choice to put myself through that but I always made sure that Jay knew everything about you and why I had let you go and fulfil your ambition in life, even
he
understood why I did it. A fucking child understood Nate!” I shook my head sadly. “But you know what; he’s so much stronger than either of us. He said when you’re ready to talk he’ll come down to meet you. What you did to him today will haunt me for the rest of my life, Nate. The way you looked at him when you realised who he was. The first time he met his father and you were a fucking arsehole, you couldn’t even talk to him.” I turned away from him and went upstairs to collect my things.

He was still stood silent, still leaning on the bloody island, bottle in hand as I walked back down. I stood in the doorway, looking at him. “We nearly had it, Nate! We nearly had everything,” I whispered sadly, then walked through the front door, taking one last glance at the box of memories.

He was still motionless and mute as I climbed into Betty and drove out of his life.

I arrived home, somehow driving on autopilot through my tear streaked vision. When I pulled onto my drive I saw Beth sat on my doorstep, wine and Haribos in hand. As I got out of the car she held them up to me and stood up. “Jay rang me.” It was all she needed to say. I stood on the driveway and cried; wept like there was no tomorrow and shook so hard that she had to come and help me into the house.

Sitting me down on the sofa, she then went and fetched two glasses and the scissors for the Haribos and then after pouring us each a glass she handed it to me, tapped it against mine and said “To Jay.” I smiled, grateful to Jay for ignoring me and ringing my best friend when I needed her the most.

“So,” she said, lifting her eyebrows at me when I had finished sobbing. “I gather from Jay that the reunion didn’t go well.” She pursed her lips. “And of all the things I thought Nate was capable of, it definitely wasn’t of hurting his son like he did.”

“He’s just hurting, Beth.” I defended him, I don’t know why but he wasn’t all at fault for what he had done to Jay. “He was angry at me not Jay and it shocked him, it wasn’t anger against Jay. Jay understands that.”

I cringed when she scoffed. “I know Liv, that’s what galls me the most, how Jay’s shrugged it off and is still willing to try again with Nate. That fucking man doesn’t deserve a son like Jay.” She was angry and I could understand her but it was still all my fault. If I had told Nate before or even when I found out I was pregnant then none of this would have happened.