The Offer (32 page)

“Shit, it’s
not going to be one of those nights in here, the ones that never
end?” James asks. “Because when they do end, I end up calling the
cops.”

But Steph is
already up and crossing the bar. She stops at the door, glares at
Bram through the glass and then unlocks it.

“What do you
want?” she asks him, opening it a crack.

“I need to
speak to Nicola,” he says. He looks over her shoulder at me.
“Please.”

Linden taps me
on the arm. “Go on,” he says. “Talk to him. I’ll have my words
after.”

Talking to
Bram is the last thing I want to do. The situation can’t get any
better. His words have the power to make it even worse. And no
matter what happens, what’s done is done and I know things are
going to suck for quite some time.

“It’s fine,
Steph,” I say to her. I walk over to the door and she reluctantly
backs away, her eyes never leaving Bram’s.

“I’m pretty
sure we pinky swore on something,” she grumbles and then goes on to
join Linden back at the bar.

“Nicola,” Bram
says. His eyes are red, filled with worry, mouth twisted bitterly.
He looks like shit, like he’s been ravaged by something terrible.
But it doesn’t make me feel a thing, not even glad. “I need to
explain.” His eyes flit to a booth. “Should we talk inside?”

“No,” I tell
him and squeeze myself through the door, taking great pains not to
brush up against him in any way. How weird one’s body goes from
being a magnet, something you couldn’t stay away from, to being
something you can’t imagine touching ever again.

I thought that
being outside I’d be able to breathe, but it’s a strangely humid
night and the mist feels like it’s choking me. I shove my hands in
my jeans, my arms stiff and close to my body as I stare at the
ground.

“So you found
me here,” I say to him. “Explain, then.”

“I would have
told you – ”

“No,” I say
sharply. “Just forget it with the things you woulda shoulda done.
You didn’t, okay? You didn’t, and it’s too late for that. So just
start from the beginning. You have a son.” How ironic it is that
under any other circumstances, that would have sounded
beautiful.

He breathes
out, long and hard. “Yes. Matthew is my son. Seven years ago, I met
Taylor. I fell for her fast and I fell for her bloody hard.”

“How
wonderful,” I can’t help but comment.

“Please,
listen,” he whispers and then clears his throat. “I fell for her
because she was something good. She’s a good woman, I know you
don’t want to hear that but it’s true. She brought me a sense of
normalcy and purpose during a time that I didn’t have any. I was a
fucking wreck back then, you have to understand. All the drugs, the
parties. I was far gone down the tracks. I shoved everything I
could up my nose, I drank everything I saw. I pissed away money. I
made a lot of enemies and bought a few friends. You would have
never even given me the time of day. I was just the worst rubbish
walking the streets.”

He swallows
thickly. “But Taylor saw something in me that I didn’t know was
there myself. And for a period of time I was in love and on my best
behaviour, anything to be with her, the woman who made me feel like
I wasn’t a worthless piece of shit, even though at that point I
most certainly was. I thought love conquered everything, Nicola. I
thought wrong. Because she ended up pregnant and my first instinct,
my first thought was I needed to run. I needed to get out of it, to
leave her with the responsibility.”

My veins are
starting to throb with rage. I’m relating to Taylor more than I’d
like.

“I couldn’t be
a father. I really was a worthless shit. And I started to think she
was a crazy loon for ever believing in me. I loved her, I really
did, but it wasn’t enough to make me stay. It wasn’t enough to make
me not cheat.”

I gasp. “You
fucking cheated on your pregnant girlfriend?”

He looks at
the ground, his shoulders sloping. “I’m not proud of it. But I did.
That’s how I fucked up. And I fucked up a lot.”

I’m starting
to feel sick. “How could you be such a pig? God, do I even know you
at all?”

He raises his
eyes to meet mine and they’re flashing with shame. “That was a
different me. I’ve told you what I was like.”

“I didn’t know
you were that horrible.” I can feel my lips curling with
disgust.

“Well, I was,
okay!” he yells. “Now do you understand why people can’t ever give
me a chance, why they never let me become anything more than what I
was? I was a horrible fucking person and I did terrible things.
Maybe I didn’t rape women or rob banks or deal drugs, but I was
horrible in other ways. I hurt Taylor in a way I could never repair
and I hurt my relationship with Matthew from the get go. Because by
the time I started to smarten up, by the time I started to pull
myself together, it was far too late. Taylor didn’t want anything
to do with me.”

“Smart woman,”
I mutter.

“And Matthew
was kept away. I tried, I tried and I tried to get them into my
life but she wasn’t having any of it. So I did what I could, which
was to send money every single month. I paid child support and then
some. I made sure Taylor and Matthew had the best life
possible.”

“But you never
gave them a dad.”

“
I
tried
,” he says
again, his brogue thickening the more upset he gets. “But it was
too little, too late. And I don’t blame Taylor at all. All I could
do was send the payments and sent the presents and hope that I
could somehow make her life just a little bit easier.”

I’ve got this
bad, sick tickle at the back of my throat. My brain wants me to
think of something horrid and I’m shoving it aside for now as Bram
is talking, pleading.

He goes on,
running his hand through his hair. “About three months before I
came out here, Taylor and Matthew moved. They’d lived in Jersey and
suddenly everything was getting returned to sender. It made my move
out here a little easier, I guess. But I never stopped putting
money away, hoping that one day she’d contact me again and I could
go on trying to make things right. That day happened today. She’s
been living in San Bernardino with her aunt and she saw me on the
news.”

“So she just
wants her money.”

“I don’t know
what she wants, to be honest. But I can’t lie and say I’m not glad
she’s here. Being around you and Ava has made me realize how much
more there is in me to give.”

That sick
feeling is back. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,
helping you…” he trails off.

I can
feel my chin tremble. “Wait. Hold on.” I take in a shaky breath.
“Is that why you wanted me and Ava around? Is that why you took
such an interest in me, in her, helping us every way you could? To
appease your fucking
guilt
?”

He looks like
I’ve just slapped him across the face. “No, it’s not like
that.”

“It is,” I
say, feeling absolutely humiliated. “I was just a charity case. We
both were. You never cared, you just wanted to get rid of your
sins, you just wanted to feel better about yourself. No wonder you
never loved me! It was never about that!”

It’s all
coming together in one shattering moment.

I feel like my
heart has been condemned.

“No!” he cries
out, grabbing my arm and pulling me to him. His eyes are panicked,
wild. “That’s not it all, it’s not. It’s not! Nicola. I…I…you…”

“
See,
you can’t even say it!” I yell at him, getting in his face. “That’s
because you don’t feel it and you never will. You only
want
to love me because you think it
would make it all so much easier.”

“No, please,
you are the world to me. You are my whole world,” he pleads.

I rip out of
his hold. “Well, apparently your whole world has way more people in
it than I anticipated.”

“Don’t do
this,” he says. “Don’t walk away from me, from us. We’re so good
together, so fucking good.”

I fire back at
him. “It was all a damn lie! There was nothing real or good about
it!” I start heading back into the bar.

“Please!” he
yells louder. “There was never a lie, there was only the truth.
What we have is the truth. I can’t do this without you.” His face
seems to shatter before my eyes. “I thought maybe you could
understand,” he adds that in a small voice.

I pause at the
door, feeling bitterness snake up my throat. “The only thing I
understand is what it’s like to be in her shoes and what it’s like
to be charity. And that’s enough understanding for me.” I open the
door and pause, realizing I’m about to do the hardest, most painful
thing.

But the right
thing.

“I’m sorry,
Bram.” Hot tears prick at my eyes and I try to steady my voice.
“This is going to break Ava’s heart. But we’re moving out tomorrow.
So we won’t be your charity anymore.”

I step inside
the bar and lock the door without looking back.

Ava won’t stop
crying.

I should have
lied. I should have told her we were just going away for a short
time. I should have told her we would see Bram again.

But I
couldn’t. The lie would hurt me to say, to even thinking about, and
over time it would ruin her.

It was best
for us both to be ruined up front.

After I
returned home from the Lion, my heart was a bleeding mess in my
hands - condemned, unsafe, unstable. The sight of my own apartment
– of Bram’s charity – was enough to make me sick, so I immediately
began packing.

I packed
all through the night, with music blaring. I never answered the
calls or the knocks at my door. If Bram was yelling at me, I didn’t
hear it. If he was reunited with the woman and his son – his
son
– I didn’t know it. I went on
like a demon, until dawn broke the cityscape and my entire
apartment was packed in every spare box, suitcase and garbage bag I
had.

There were a
lot of garbage bags.

What I really
wanted to do was find a place to move into while Ava was gone. I
was delusional. I don’t know why I thought that would happen, why I
had the idea that maybe my mother could drop her off in a whole new
life. She would never have to see our old place again.

But I had
everything packed, no place to go and no car to get me there even
if I did.

I called my
mom. I explained what happened.

I did it
without crying. I thought I was so brave.

My mother came
over and the minute I saw Ava’s face, I realized I wasn’t brave at
all.

I was a
mess.

She looked
around the apartment in confusion. She didn’t understand and no
matter how I tried to explain it, there was no right answer to what
was happening.

I didn’t want
to blame it all on Bram. I didn’t want her to hate him even though
I was starting to believe that I did.

Ava doesn’t
hate. She doesn’t have it in her. She just gets broken, like a
porcelain doll.

To make
matters worse, all the emotions she was feeling, the rejection, the
discomfort and the pain of losing the things she loved, made her
feel dizzy.

Sick.

She threw up
and her blood levels were all over the place.

I’d never felt
so alone, even with my mother there, trying to get the proper food
into her, water, insulin, balance. I knew Bram was next door. I
could hear him, but I would never ask for his help again.

Luckily, just
as we were about to take her to the hospital, she pulled out of
it.

Then the tears
came.

They haven’t
stopped.

I’m at my
mother’s house, sitting on her sofa with my legs curled up under
me, sipping tea. It’s picture perfect but I’m a raging torrent
inside.

Ava is beside
me sniffling, wiping her nose on her arm, on me.

I can only
hold her. I can only tell her it will be all right, even if I don’t
believe it. It feels so futile, so useless, yet I keep saying it
anyway.

Kayla has
offered her apartment to the both of us. So has my mother. But I
still have a job – and a promotion – so I’m going to stay with
Kayla in the city. Ava and I will be squished into Kayla’s den, but
it’s just temporary and I think Kayla needs some help with her
rising rent costs herself. Linden and Steph offered their place
too, but I can’t look at Linden right now. He reminds me too much
of his brother. He has offered to move my furniture out of the
apartment and put it right into storage until we find a place of
our own and get started. That generous act, well, that reminds me
of his brother also.

Ava shifts in
my arms and looks up at me with big wet eyes and there’s so much
hope in them that it makes me want to cry. Because I pray that the
hope isn’t misleading.

She lost Bram
who had become her father figure whether I wanted it that way or
not.

I lost my
heart.

I loved
Bram.

I
loved
him.

His smile, his
jokes, his generosity. His lips, his eyes, his jaw. His attitude,
his good nature, his humor. His ease, his height, his body. His
ambition. His adoration. His devotion.

He looked at
me like I was magic.

I started to
believe it.

We were magic
together.

And I still
loved him.

After
everything, how can I not?

How can I
stop?

But this love
is what’s making me collapse inside.

Second by
empty second.

Brick by heavy
brick.

Six Weeks Later

“
You
know, I don’t think I ever told you how sorry I am.”