Stay With Me

by Grayson, Alivia

  “No excuse!” I slam my hands down on the table, making her jump. “You had no right to keep this from me. I should have had the chance to meet my son, to say goodbye to him, and you took that from me!” I hang my head. Fuck, this hurts.

  “I have a daughter, you know,” I don’t look at her, but I can tell she’s shocked. I can sense her mouth hanging open. “Faye. She’s three. She was an accident, one drunken night with a crazy bitch who’d been with every man in her hometown. It took months to prove paternity because she’d been with so many men. It turns out the baby was mine.

  “I get hardly any time with her because her mother is a selfish bitch who plays my daughter against me. I never loved her mother, but I’m always there for Faye when she needs me. Nothing and no one in this world could ever keep me away from her. I would have been there for Ryan, too. I would have loved him so well, Ricky.”

  I can’t help the sob escaping my throat. I didn’t even know Ryan, yet I feel his passing like it was ten minutes ago. This is the woman I have loved my whole life, and she kept this from me of all people.

  “I know you would have loved him, Bryan. I never doubted that. The truth is that I thought I could give birth to him, then come home to you. That was my plan. My grandfather was helping me sort it all. I knew once I had the baby, I could come here to you, we could get married and be a family, and there would have been nothing Ray could have done about it.

  “But then Ryan passed away, and I couldn’t face you. I was dead inside, and I wanted to save you from that pain. Right or wrong, I thought I was doing what was best for you at the time. I fell into a deep depression that I couldn’t get out of; I was in the hospital for a while because of it. When I was well enough, I shut myself off from everyone because I couldn’t cope. I knew that if I saw you, it would break me all over again.”

  “You don’t think this has broken me?” I stand my full height to face her. I want to hold her against me, make all of this pain go away for both of us, but I’m too angry right now.

  “I know that I’ve done wrong, and I’m so sorry. Please don’t let this ruin us again. Please, Bryan, I need you.”

  “I need you to leave. I can’t do this right now.” Ricky doesn’t say anything, just nods her head, wipes her eyes, and walks away.

  I need some time to think about things. I need to talk to someone. I need to understand why Ricky kept this from me of all people. I could have been with her. I could have held my son. I could have told him that I loved him. She took that from me, and I don’t know that I can forgive her.

  Chapter 15

  Ricky

  I don’t think I’ve felt this broken in a very long time. I didn’t expect Bryan to be jumping for joy when I told him about Ryan, nor did I assume that he would hold me while telling me it was all okay, that he understood why I kept it all from him. I was trying to save him the pain of it all.

  I know how wrong that was, my grandfather told me so a million times. However, I thought I was doing what was best for Bryan. That’s all I have ever done or tried to do at least, but now look what’s happened. I’ve hurt him so badly I know he’ll never forgive me, and why should he?

  I’ve lost the man I have loved my whole life yet again, and I don’t think I can handle it. I don’t think I can survive it this time. I was so happy when I woke up this morning. How was I to know that he’d seen my tattoo?

  I should have known, I never uncover it, only I can look upon it now and again — what a horrible way for him to find out about Ryan. The little boy I named after his father in a fashion. I wanted to tell him, of course, I did, but not like that, in his kitchen while sitting on his lap crying my eyes out.

  I need to get out of here. I should never have come.

  I rush to pull on yesterday’s clothes and shoes. I grab my coat and purse and turn to leave. Something inside of me is telling me to stay, to fight for the man I love the way I should have done nine years ago.

  How can I when he hates me for what I’ve done?

  I can never get back the time Bryan should have had with Ryan. That time is gone, and I will forever be sorry for that. I’ve lost him once again, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to fix this.

  I don’t see him as I make my way downstairs. Not that I’m going to look, I think he needs a little time alone to get his head around what he now knows. Maybe I’ll come back tomorrow and tell him from the bottom of my heart how sorry I truly am.

  I don’t know where I’m going. Back to my lonely hotel room, I guess. However, I don’t seem to be heading that way. It’s as if my car has a mind of its own, right now, leading me toward my grandfather’s house. I found sanctuary there once, all those years ago. Right now, I need that.

  I need to process the fact that the man I love is once again brokenhearted because of me. Also, I need to process the fact that Bryan told me that he has a three-year-old daughter. I can’t be mad about it; I didn’t expect he wouldn’t have relationships with others. However, the fact he threw out that it was one night that led to that little girl’s life shocked me to my core.

  Damn, does the man not know how to use protection?

  Does he have super sperm or something?

  Even though it hurts knowing he has a child with someone else, I think it hurts more that she’ll never know her big brother. She’ll never know how much he was loved and wanted. All she’ll remember is how I kept her Daddy from meeting his little boy. How he died, and I waited eight years to tell him the truth. It’s killing me inside.

  How do I fix this?

  How do I try and make Bryan understand that I was trying to spare him the heartache of what happened?

  Furthermore, how could I have made myself believe I would never have to tell him?

  I was wrong, and I had no right to keep this from Bryan, No, right at all.

  This is going to take some serious thought. I won’t give up on Bryan. He may not want me after this, and that’s fine, but he will hear me out. When he’s calmed down, I’ll make him understand why I did what I did. I’m a strong woman. I won’t give up.

  My grandparents made me see just how strong I really am. They taught me to go after what I want and to grab it with both hands and never let go. I did that with my life and my career, and I should have done that with Bryan.

  We were made for each other, and I have wasted all these years hiding from him because I believed it was the right thing to do.

  Well, no more hiding and no more running. I want my best friend back, and if that’s the only relationship we end up with, then so be it. However, I won’t push him out of my life anymore, and I darn well refuse to let him push me out of his.

  “Grandpa!” I call while letting myself into his house. He always leaves the front door unlocked. I wish he wouldn’t do that. I tell him all the time on the phone about leaving the door unlocked. He never listens.

  “Ricky? Is that you?”

  “Yes, it’s me,” I walk the short distance from the front door to the living room on the right. “I just came to...” Oh hell.

  “Lyric.”

  “Raymond.” The man standing in front of Bob’s fireplace, wearing a dark business suit, hands entwined behind his back, looking me dead in the eye has my whole body trembling, and not in a good way. This man is the devil himself. He was never a father to me, never did he treat me with the love and kindness he did Kendal. I still don’t understand to this day what was so wrong with me, why he didn’t love me.

  “What are you doing here?” Acid tone. I know what that means. It means: Get out and stay out!

  Not going to happen. I’m not running from him anymore. I’m not a scared little girl whose Daddy used to beat her, make her pray for her made-up sins for hours on end to purge her soul of evil.

  I’m not the scared little girl whose Daddy used to force her to lie to her best friend and everyone around her about how she got such bruises on her body.

  I’m not the scared little girl whose Daddy promised her to a much old
er man who would keep her from falling into the hands of the devil. I’m a strong woman with an elderly grandfather who needs taking care of, and it’s high time I stopped running and came home to do just that. Yes, that’s what I said, come home.

  With my head held high and my arms folded over my chest, I say, “I’m here to visit with my grandfather.”

  “You are not welcome here!”

  “Yes, she is!” My grandfather bellows while getting to his feet. “This is my house. I will not have you push her out any longer. She meant the world to your mother.”

  “Sit down, Father.” What the heck? Did he seriously just push my elderly grandfather down into his seat?

  I rush to Bob’s side. “Are you okay?” He looks at me, his face pale, and nods. They’ve been mistreating him, I can tell. Were my so-called parents abusing my grandmother too?

  I won’t let this go on. Bob is a wonderful man, a man of God. Not in the way his son is, but a man who loves everyone and everything, just as Jesus would have wanted him to. He’s a gentle soul. How could anybody hurt him? Especially his own son!

  “You have no right to touch him like that. You could have injured him!”

  “My father is not your concern.”

  “That is where you’re wrong. Bob is my concern, and I won’t let you hurt him!”

  “It’s okay,” Bob whispers as I cup his face. My insides are churning with sadness for him. I can feel my heart breaking inside my chest. I can’t bear the thought of what his son might have been doing to him because he can’t fight back. Not in the way a man much younger would.

  “Get to your feet and face me!”

  Not that I want to do as he just ordered me to, but even after all these years, it’s ingrained in me to do so. I swallow hard, stand, and turn to face him. Bob takes my hand in his from where he sits. He’s worried, I can tell by the way he’s holding on so tightly. I give Bob a slight reassuring smile, he looks scared, and no father should be scared of his own child. It’s so very wrong.

  “How dare you come back here? How dare you defy me!”

  “I wanted to say goodbye to my grandmother.”

  “My mother was nothing to do with you!”

  I jump a little.

  Why am I letting him intimidate me?

  Because he’s enormous and fucking scary, that’s why, especially for a man in his early sixties, I guess I’m not quite as strong as I thought I was.

  “You lost your right to be a part of this family when you whored yourself out to that boy!”

  “I didn’t...”

  “Silence!” I swallow hard again. I want to run, but I will not leave Bob alone with Ray. God only knows what he’ll do to him. “Say goodbye and then leave. Get out of town and go back to wherever it is you came from.”

  “No.” I hope that came out stronger than it sounded to my ears.

  “No?” He takes a step toward me. Even though my heart is racing, and my natural instinct is to run from this man, I don’t move an inch. “Did you just tell me, no?”

  “You do not get to order me around. I am twenty-six years old — a grown woman. I came home for my grandmother’s funeral because she meant the world to me. I was leaving, but now I’m staying. I’m staying for my grandfather because I want to take care of him, and I’m staying for the man I love.”

  “The man you love? That devil boy?”

  Devil boy?

  He refers to Bryan as a devil boy, yet he lets his wife be friends with Bryan’s mother? What’s that all about? That doesn’t even make any sense to me.

  “You think he wants you now? He has a child with someone else, that’s how much he wants you!” That was intended to hurt me. It didn’t. Bryan has a child with someone else, and I know he loves that little girl. Which means I love her also. I might not know her, but she’s Bryan’s little girl, and that means something.

  “I can fix your soul, Lyric. I can have Brother Jacob cleanse your soul. Once he has, I will forgive your shortcomings. Your mother will welcome you home...”

  “That is enough!” My grandfather gets to his feet, and I stupidly take my eyes of Ray for a second to look at Bob. I didn’t mean to scream, but as Ray grabs me and pulls me against him, I can’t help myself. “Let go of her right now. Your mother would be turning in her grave!” Bob yells.

  I whimper without meaning to as Ray grabs my face between thick fingers and squeezes. “The worst mistake I ever made was bringing you into my family. She’ll be a good daughter, she said. I promise she won’t let you down, she said. I should have made her give you away the moment you were born.”

  “Raymond, don’t do this now.”

  “Don’t do what?” I manage to get out. He’s going to end up bruising my face if he doesn’t let go of me.

  “I always knew you could never be what she promised. Even with Brother David’s promise to cleanse your soul and make you his wife.”

  That was the most frightening thought to me as a child, the fact from the moment I was born, I had been promised to the leader of my father’s church, Brother David, forty-three years old by the time I was born. I would have had no choice but to marry him; that’s why I needed to know how Bryan felt about me back then. I loved him so much, and all I wanted was to be with him. I thought if we confessed our love to each other that Raymond wouldn’t be able to force me to marry David, I could be with Bryan.

  Didn’t work out very well for me, did it?

  “The daughter of a rapist.” He mocks.

  “Raymond!”

  My eyeballs are darting from side to side. There’s a brick inside my head, and someone is bashing it against my brain.

  Why is he saying this stuff to me?

  Why is he still trying to hurt me?

  However, if what he said is true, it would make sense as to why he’s always been so hard on me, why he hates me so much.

  “Let Brother Jacob cleanse you. Come back to the fold. Marry a good man. A man of my choosing, and all will be forgiven.”

  “This isn’t the dark ages!” Bob snaps. He’s right, it’s not the dark ages, and there is no way on this earth I will do what this crazy SOB wants me to do.

  “What happened to you, Raymond? You met those people, and you turned into someone I don’t recognize. Your children are not commodities for you to exchange for a higher ranking in that so-called church!”

  So-called because it is nothing more than a cult. The Church of Evanlast. God’s purest children. I don’t believe for one second God would approve of anything those people preach.

  “They belong to me, and they will do as I tell them. This one needs salvation, and I am offering it to her.”

  Offering it to me?

  Is he so far gone that he doesn’t see how wrong this is?

  Didn’t he just tell me I was the daughter of a rapist?

  I grab his hand and prize it away from my face. “Are you my birth father?”

  “That does not matter. If you come home and do as I say...”

  “No,” I don’t need him to verify it. He’s not my father. He’s not, and even though I hate him, I don’t know how I feel about that. None of my family is even my family. My mother has none on her side left alive, and I will never know my rapist birth father, I am utterly alone.

  However, I know Bob will never leave me or push me aside. I still have him even if I’m not of his blood. He has loved and cared for me my whole life, which says much more about his humanity than it does his sons.

  “I’m not going to come home to your family. I’m not going to meet with anyone from your cult-like church, and I most certainly am not going to marry a man as crazy as you.”

  “You think like that because you have been gone so long. Come and meet Brother Jacob. He will be so good for you.”

  “No! You are not my father, you said so yourself. I do not want that way of life. I love Bryan; I have always loved him. You cannot force me to do what you want me to do!”

  “Insolence!”

  Holy hel
lfire, my eyes!

  I think I’m on the floor. I felt a sharp pain on the side of my head; I think he just slapped me. Maybe he punched me, but I am most definitely on the floor with blurred eyes. My ears are ringing. God, this isn’t good. I’m a doctor, and I’m sure he hit me hard enough to cause a concussion.

  My head is throbbing, and I can’t keep my eyes open.

  Everything is going dark. I need to keep my eyes open.

  Why is no one talking to me?

  Why can’t I hear anything?

  However, I can feel pain in my face, my ribs, my...

  Chapter 16

  Bryan

  I let her walk out. I allowed her to walk out of here, and I didn’t even try to stop her.

  Why didn’t I stop her?

  Because I was so goddamned angry with her, that’s why.

  I’ve been sitting here at my dinner table for the past two hours, staring into space, thinking about the little boy I will never know. I wonder what he looked like, what he smelled like. I want to grieve with Ricky, but I can’t because she’s done enough of that for the past eight years.

  What kills me is the fact I know deep down she was alone. She shouldered all the burden of Ryan’s death by herself, and it hurts so much to know I wasn’t there for her.

  I know deep in my heart that she didn’t tell me because she wanted to save me from that kind of pain. She wanted me to have the life I’d always planned. Telling me about Ryan would have meant her leaving to protect me was for nothing. She knew I would have dropped everything to be with her. I wish she knew how she killed me inside long before Ryan was even born.

  Maybe I wouldn’t have been able to handle what happened back then. Perhaps I would have crumbled and not been there for Ricky how she would have needed me to be anyway. However, I can’t say for sure what I would or wouldn’t have done because I wasn’t given a chance to try.

  I’ll move on from this. I just need a few days, and I have Faye, my little princess, to keep me going strong. Whom does Ricky have? Bob is the only person she has.