Forever and Never

by Ella Fields

  Afterward, I took a cigarette break and plucked my phone from my coveralls, squinting at the screen as the sun peeked out from behind a cluster of dark clouds.

  I’d tried to call Annika every day the first week she’d disappeared, then every second day the week after. Now, I was lucky if I even thought of her a few times a week. Why I bothered trying when she hadn’t been a team player since the start was something many didn’t understand. Though I suppose it could be summed up pretty simply. I was giving her a chance. Because I would spend every fucking penny I’d put aside and then some, whatever it took, to ensure she didn’t try to take custody of my daughter when she was set up after college and suddenly ready to become a mother.

  So, I extended copious olive branches she didn’t fucking deserve. I wasn’t doing it because I couldn’t do this without her. I’d been doing it without her for over five weeks now, and I was getting by just fine. I also did it for Lily. Should there ever come a day that she asked me what’d happened to her mother, the way I’d asked my own about my shit-rag father, I wanted to be able to look her square in her beautiful eyes and tell her I tried. I tried, and I tried, and I fucking tried.

  I was so sick and tired of trying.

  Lily’s sleeping face lit up my screen after I’d left yet another voicemail. This time I’d kept it blunt, telling her to call me.

  She wouldn’t, but again with the trying.

  Sucking back more of my cigarette, I flicked ash to the ground, leaning back against the old Buick that’d been stuck here for a few years. It’d belonged to one of Boyd’s friends, but he’d been going through cancer treatment when he’d brought it in. He lost his fight before I started working here full time, and Boyd hadn’t the heart to sell it. The friend’s widow didn’t want it, nor did she have the money to fix it. It needed work, but it would have to wait as we were constantly swamped.

  My thumb scrolled through Instagram, and I grinned when I saw a picture of Dash passed out on a couch with a moustache drawn on his face and a sombrero hanging off the side of his head. The caption read: I need better friends. Stat.

  I typed out a comment, then thought better of it and backspaced. Something I’d done a lot of lately, and I wasn’t even sure why.

  Before I knew what I was doing, I’d typed in Daphne’s name. I’d quit following her everywhere after she’d split me in two, but her profile wasn’t on private. I had to wonder if it was because she knew, or hoped, I’d be lurking.

  And lurk I did, but only in moments of extreme weakness.

  Today, I wished I hadn’t.

  It’d been five days since she’d waltzed inside my house as if she’d never vacated my life with a violent bang, leaving me in never-ending debris.

  Just two days ago, she’d posted a selfie, her bright green eyes glowing even behind those upturned squares she called sunglasses. Her pink lips looked as soft as I remembered them to be, her teeth vibrant and perfect as they sank into her bottom lip, long dark hair spilling over her shoulder as she held up a takeout coffee.

  Some asshole with ratty blond hair had commented with a wink, saying he couldn’t wait to see her again. Benji.

  Who the fuck was Benji?

  A dead man if I ever saw him, that was who.

  I lit another smoke to calm the new anger festering. It shook my hands and made my teeth meet. Exiting the app, I shoved my phone away.

  She was more than welcome to move on. Lord knew I had a handful of times myself. But why she had to come strutting back into my life the way she had last weekend made no fucking sense to me. Not when she went to such extreme lengths to leave it.

  She probably felt sorry for me. I was the poor kid, the single dad, and although I would’ve done anything for that girl once upon a time, that time had passed.

  She wasn’t allowed to feel sorry for me, especially when I’d never once let myself feel that way since Lily entered the world.

  Fuck her.

  It was alarming how quick obsession could turn into resentment. The way love could so easily shift into hate.

  And so long as I held the two deep inside my chest, inside the place she once had ownership of, she’d never fool me again.

  Daphne

  “I know, I know.” I paid the barista, waved for her to keep the change, then grabbed my coffee. “I can’t make it, though.”

  Peggy made a groaning sound. “Why not? It’s not that long on the plane. You can stay with us all weekend.”

  It wasn’t, but I had other things I wanted to do this weekend. “I need to go home.”

  Peggy scoffed. “Ah, no, you don’t. You did that last weekend. Come on,” she whined. “I miss my friend.”

  I smiled as I slipped by a group of students waiting in line. “You have Dash.”

  She lowered her voice. “He’s always turning chill time into sexy time. I need to hang with someone who gets me but doesn’t want in my pants.”

  “Sexy time?” I laughed out, opening the door with my hip, then heading to my car at the curb. “You can’t say that anymore.”

  “Watch me,” she said. “Sexy time, sexy time—”

  “Okay,” I said, squeezing the phone between my shoulder and ear as I climbed in the car and started it. I waited until the Bluetooth connected, then continued, “You don’t want to have sex with Dash? Say no.”

  I put my phone down and my seat belt on as Peggy laughed. “No way, that’s the thing. He has this way of making—”

  “Okay, that’s enough.” I turned out onto the road, knowing I’d have to fess up to get away with letting her down. “I saw Lars last weekend.”

  “Oh.” She paused. “What happened?”

  I chewed my lip, unsure how to phrase it. “I saw him at the grocery store. I saw Lily.”

  “She’s cute, isn’t she?” Peggy said, clear affection in her voice. “Those cheeks and that hair.”

  I smiled, remembering. “She’s beautiful. But he wouldn’t talk to me or even let me touch her.”

  Peggy went quiet once more, then sighed. “You can’t really blame him. He’s been in love with you for years. Probably since his voice broke.” She laughed, then paused. “No, wait. That’s probably close to the truth.”

  Guilt slithered and crawled through every vein. “Peggy.”

  “Sorry. Okay, so he wouldn’t talk to you, yet you’re going back?” A fat pause preceded her next questions. “What exactly are you trying to do here? Win him back after you went to such great lengths to get rid of him?”

  “There’s no need to word it so harshly,” I said, taking a big sip of coffee. “And no.” I set my cup back in the cup holder, then merged on to the old highway that would take me home. “I don’t want that, at least …” I stopped, shaking my head. “It’s impossible anyway.”

  Peggy caught what I didn’t say. “You’re beginning to think you might’ve made a huge mistake, aren’t you?”

  I knew it was a mistake the moment I saw him again—much sooner than that, if I was being honest—which was only confirmed when I discovered Annika’s empty room at his place. But there was no fixing what I’d done. We couldn’t be happy again after what I’d done. “That doesn’t matter.”

  “Then what are you thinking?”

  “Annika left.”

  “I heard,” Peggy said.

  I frowned. “What the hell? And you didn’t think to tell me?”

  “We only found out a few weeks ago. And no, I hadn’t planned to. I didn’t think it would make you feel any better.”

  She had a point there but still. “He has no one.” The soft, sad tone of my voice grated, and I cleared my throat. “It’s just him, Glenda, and Lily. I want to check on them. That’s all.”

  Peggy hummed. “Did he look as though he was coping okay? It’s just … I don’t want you interfering and having your cold heart smashed to pieces.”

  “My heart isn’t cold,” I said, annoyed. Though it was in pieces.

  Peggy laughed. “I’m just messing with you. Okay, fine. Bai
l out and go annoy the boy you broke.” My scowl deepened. “Then tell me all about it on Monday when I call you.”

  She hung up before I could snap at her.

  Dating Dash had given that woman a decent pair of balls.

  I entered the cove just before four thanks to my last class finishing at two thirty, sped down the leaf-strewn roads until I’d reached the group of houses on the other side of the creek, and turned into Lars’s street.

  I’d left right away, hoping he’d be at work until at least five, so I could try to catch Glenda on her day off. I was petrified, worried about what he might’ve told her about me and what I’d done. But the thought of seeing her, Lily, and seeing if I could be of any help, drowned out that anxiety.

  I knocked and waited, and when Glenda opened the door, her eyes said it all.

  They were full of knowledge and disappointment, but what killed me the most was the mistrust. “Hey,” I croaked.

  Glenda merely nodded, opening the door wide. “I had a feeling he’d run into you.”

  I shut it behind me, careful to do so gently in case Lily was asleep, then followed her to the dining table. She’d set her book down, and I snuck a look at the title while she turned the tea kettle on. “I haven’t read that one yet.”

  “Wouldn’t waste your time.”

  I winced, then sat back in the seat, taking my purse off my shoulder and putting it on the table. “How are you?”

  “Tired, doll. Tired and cranky and getting old.”

  I withheld my laughter at her candid answer, wishing I could hug her and tell her that I’d missed her. I’d never known that I would. I’d been selfish in my quest to be the opposite, not stopping to think about everything else I’d lose from my reckless decision.

  “You don’t look a day over thirty,” I said, tapping my nails over the wood.

  “Flattery will get you a coffee, but that’s about it.”

  “I’ll take it,” I said, laughing a little.

  I waited until she’d sat down across from me; what I’d done to her, to Lars, and to myself hung stale and insidious between us. “I had no idea, Glenda. None. I promise. He’s my mom’s—”

  “I don’t need to know the how or why.” She wrapped her hands around her mug, staring down at the steaming liquid. “It’s not Ellis who hurt me. It was your lack of faith.” Her eyes lifted to mine. “You never had it to begin with, did you, doll?”

  She was right. She was right, and I didn’t know how to voice any kind of excuse because really, there were no more excuses. “Second,” I said, stunning myself. “I’m the daughter of a surgeon. A model. The only person in my family, until recently, that ever put me first when she could was my grandmother.” I licked my lips as I stared down at the table. “I didn’t want to be anyone’s afterthought. Anyone’s second choice. I swore I would never be that again.” I didn’t bring up Ellis, the fact he was married and how that made me feel when we’d first began our dirty little dance.

  Glenda was silent for a long moment. “I see.” Looking up, I tried to smile at her. “Just because I can empathize doesn’t mean I agree.” She sighed. “But you two are so fucking young.” Shaking her head, she laughed. “I just … it’s easy to forget that.”

  “Age doesn’t excuse it. Nothing really does.” I hoped she could read the honesty in my voice and see it in my eyes. “But when I came here last weekend, and I saw she was gone …” I raked a hand through my hair. “How are you two coping?”

  Glenda scoffed, taking a sip of her coffee. “That girl was never any help to begin with.” When she saw I was still waiting for her to answer, she set her cup down. “We’re okay. It gets tricky, but we’re going to be fine.”

  The fact that Glenda had to be anything but happy and moving forward with her life now that Lars had graduated and was supposed to be moving forward with his own had my lips tugging down. “Mr. Denham?”

  Glenda got up then, the chair screeching a little over the floor. “We’ve decided to let it be for a while.”

  My mouth fell open as she walked to the sink, and then Lily’s cries pierced the silent house and Glenda was marching down the hall to Lars’s room.

  Returning a moment later, she crinkled her nose, lifting Lily into the air, “Poo-ey!” Lily stopped blubbering and began laughing, a snot bubble popping in her tiny nose. “Someone’s done a fresh stinker. Would you mind making a bottle while I sort her out?”

  Smiling, I stood, more than ready to help, then I paused. “Wait, how do I do that?” I knew she drank formula, but I had no idea what to do with that.

  “She’s seven months so three scoops. The bottles are already in the fridge and filled with water. Then just pop it in the warmer by the sink and switch it on.”

  Seven months old. Holy hell. Letting that sink in a moment, I grabbed a prepped bottle of water. With shaking hands, I did as she’d said, the powdered nutrients spilling a little onto the countertop as I dumped it inside and tried to secure the lid.

  I stared at the floating globs, then peered at the tin of formula, quickly reading the instructions. “Shake it. Right.” I laughed at myself. “Duh.”

  Double checking the lid was in place, I shook it until it resembled creamy milk, then carefully plopped it in the small warmer and switched it on.

  I was wiping the powder from the counter when Glenda returned with a clean and happy Lily trying to pull her hair.

  I rinsed the cloth. “Is she crawling?”

  Glenda huffed, amused as she smirked at her granddaughter. “No, stubborn girl wants everyone to do everything for her.”

  The warmer beeped, and I jumped, then turned to switch it off, drying the bottle when I plucked it out.

  Glenda tutted and set Lily on the floor, then picked up her coffee and retook her seat. “You can do it, and while you’re at it, tell me how that fancy college of yours is treating you.”

  I stared down at Lily, who was smacking her wet, bow-shaped lips together, eyeing the bottle in my hand.

  I swallowed, put the bottle on the dining table, and bent low, smiling at her. “Hi, Lily.”

  She grinned, and I caught two flashes of white breaking through her gums. “She has teeth?”

  Glenda laughed. “Been giving Lars hell these past few weeks with them.”

  I masked the jolting sensation in my chest by pouting at Lily. “Are they hurting you, sweet girl?”

  She leaned forward, and I panicked, reaching for her, then her hands slapped onto the floor, and she gurgled out a laugh. “Ba, ba, ba.”

  My limbs relaxed. “Ba yourself. You scared me.”

  “She’s harmless, if you don’t count the teeth thing.”

  Giving Glenda a raised brow, I scooped Lily up, surprised by her hefty weight, then, somewhat awkwardly, I took a seat with her on my lap. “Who’s ba?”

  “That’d be anyone,” Glenda said. “Much to Lars’s dismay.”

  The way she so easily spoke about him both hurt and soothed. It wasn’t like Glenda to sugarcoat anything, so I knew she was trying to treat me as she once did but also punish me a little while doing so.

  Uncapping the bottle, I waved it in front of Lily, maneuvering her back into the crook of my arm a little. “Hungry?”

  She reached for it, and I helped her hold it to her mouth, wiping beneath her chin when some escaped. I looked around, then decided to just wipe my hand on my jeans.

  “She looks so much like him,” I said, my fingers smoothing some of her thick, unruly, straight hair back from her forehead. I tugged at the floral T-shirt she was wearing, pulling it over her soft, pudgy stomach.

  Glenda hummed. “So, college?”

  “I’m attending Edmond Ross. It’s going well, I guess. There’s a lot more freedom than what I thought there’d be, but if you aren’t careful, you’ll find it to be a disadvantage. Then you’ll be up until two in the morning cramming instead of partying.”

  “Edmond Ross?” Glenda asked. “That’s why you’re back again?”

  She
knew where it was then. I nodded, smiling at Lily when she grinned at me around the nipple of her bottle.

  “How’d you end up there? You and Lars both applied for all the big leagues. And with parents like you described …” She trailed off, waiting.

  I wasn’t going to tell her. I wasn’t going to tell anyone. So I pasted on a smile and glanced at her confused expression. “Things change. What other books have you read since I’ve been gone?”

  She blinked, studying me a long moment with an intensity that spelled trouble. Finally, she muttered, “I’m going to need a pen and piece of paper.”

  I laughed and listened to her chat about some of the best and the worst as she wrote them down for me.

  The front door opening had me startling and roused Lily, who’d fallen asleep with her head on my boob. I rubbed her back, hoping she didn’t feel the unease snaking through me at warp speed, and her eyelids drifted closed again.

  Lars’s footsteps had the floorboards creaking, and when he appeared in the doorway dirty, disheveled, and shocked, I said the only thing I could think of. “Hi.”

  Lars

  She was in my house.

  Why I was surprised after the way she’d shown up here last weekend was beyond my thinking capabilities right now.

  I couldn’t move. I could scarcely draw enough air into my lungs to feed my next breath as I stared at the woman who’d left me in ashes. The woman I hated. The woman who intentionally set out to destroy us.

  The woman who was holding my daughter. Holding her as though she cared about her, as though she had any fucking right to.

  I moved then, stomping across the small space between us to grab my sleeping heart from her arms. Rage became all I could feel, numbing my hands to the soft brush of Daphne’s arms long enough to transfer Lily into Mom’s.

  “Lars,” Mom said, shocked.

  I ignored her and grabbed Daphne’s purse, then her wrist, hauling her to the front door and through it, and dumping her stupid designer shit over the railing onto the grass.