by Marci Fawn
That Faith isn’t going to come out.
I leave him standing dumbfounded, and it kills the little bit of me inside that screams for me to come back to him.
Dawn should be out of her room by now. Sometimes, she struggles to get out of bed, though, or to put on her clothes. She is three, going on four. Maybe I should still be helping her. I love Dawn so much, but every time I see her, I think of River… Even more than I usually do.
And then it hits me like I’m the the one that got slapped.
He still doesn’t know he is her father. Would he recognize himself in her like I do?
I move my hand to the door, about to open it. It yawns open before I can even touch it, my little bundle of joy crashing through it. She’s wearing one of her favorite dresses, a frilly pink thing Sabrina got for her as a joke. No wonder Sabrina had been weird about River earlier, especially when he’d called and I’d answered it, going to get him.
“Mommy,” a little voice interrupts.
I feel sick even thinking about this. I drop to my knees in an instant, pulling her lovely curls out of her face and bringing her in for a hug.
She needs a father. I can’t be thinking about River, but I know that by the way the skin on my body is prickling up in response… He’s looking at us. Dawn’s room is only just down the hallway. River could easily see us from the living room, although, with how small Dawn is, he might not be able to see her that well.
“Did you sleep well, darling?” I ask my daughter affectionately. “No bad dreams tonight, I hope?”
“Nope!” she grins and I can’t help but smile at her. She’s the little ray of sunshine in every day. She makes everything so much better. “Do we have a visitor, mommy?”
My expression clouds over.
I wrap my arms around her, bringing her to my chest. I’ll protect her from anything bad in the world, anything that could make her sad. I got together with Jason just after she was born. She has to think he’s her father. What else could she think?
“Are you ready to go to school, baby?” I kiss my little girl’s forehead, ignoring her previous question.
She nods vigorously, and we stand, and I knew it. I knew River was staring at us. His eyes are
deep and beautiful and… Full of sorrow. My heart catches in my throat. I need to say something…
“Where are my two favorite girls?” A deep voice booms from the hallway.
Jason walks through the foyer, throwing his arms around me as he stares down my first love. I lean into him, but it’s just an act.
Am I Jason’s? Or am I River’s?
I shouldn’t question this. Jason put that ring on my finger. He’s been taking care of me. I sigh wistfully.
“You okay?” Jason asks me a question, but it’s all for show. He doesn’t want an answer. He presses his lips against mine softly, focusing more on River in the background than on me. He looks from River, to me, and then back again.
He remembers him. He must. “What is he doing here?”
“Nothing.” My words come too quick, defensive. I hope no one notices. “I was just walking him out.”
It’s no lie.
I leave Dawn with Jason and grab River’s forearm, digging my nails into his flesh. I drag him towards the floor and he follows, dumbfounded. It hurts that he does. I half expected him to dig his heels into the floor and demand I answer his questions.
I push him outside, into the hallway. “Never call me again, River,” I tell him coldly. I deliver the blow, but it breaks my own heart instead of his. Surely, it shouldn’t be this way…
“But, Faith,” he manages to get out. “Your little girl.”
“What?” I bark.
“Am I… Is she…” He stares at me hopefully, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows, desperate for an answer.
“Don’t fucking fool yourself, River Xavier,” I say coldly, and I can see how badly I’ve hurt him.
“What’s her name?” he wants to know.
I hesitate. But he deserves to know.
“Dawn,” I whisper, before slamming the door in his face.
Sabrina clicks her seatbelt in the passenger seat as she slams the door closed. “I can’t believe you had River over.”
“It was your idea!” I take the car out of park. She’s been talking about River nonstop like we’re in eleventh grade again. She had lots to say when she wanted to know about our date that night; she had even more to say when I was expecting. That I should tell him. Go to him. Get a little house by the sea and start a family with him. I did none of it, and I say little now.
“Don’t you want to see him, Faith? Be with him again? You were obsessed with him for years,” Sabrina continues, ignoring the way my hands clutch at the wheel. “You had his baby. You want him. Admit it.”
I stop the car at a red light, gritting my teeth. I wonder if he’s still a boxer, if he still takes out his rage on punching bags when he’s upset. I’d love nothing more than to do that right now, maybe with him behind me, guiding my punches so I don’t hurt myself.
But then… The other half of me wants to use him as the bag.
“I’m getting married, Sabrina.” This needs to be the end of the conversation. Sabrina is my best friend. All I need to do is tell her that this is the end of it and she’ll quit mentioning it… Probably.
But I don’t.
“Yeah, which, if you think about it,” Sabrina kept talking, her glossy lips moving faster than most people imagined her mind could, “is a fuckin’ horrible idea.”
Movement.
Waiting for the pedestrians to cross the street.
The car starts again.
We’re almost there.
“We’re trying on dresses for a rehearsal, Sabrina! This is the end of it. Enough!” My voice rises and I feel bad that I yelled at my friend, but I need to draw a line somewhere, don’t I? Before I start considering the possibilities…
“Look. Dresses are nice and all, but River is better. Think about it. I’m not backing down from this, Faith, just consider it. You always preferred him to Jason anyway.”
She opens the glove compartment, looking for a piece of paper to doodle on and a pen to do the doodling with, maybe to imitate that same sketch she made three years ago.
I grab the paper from her, crumpling it in my hands before she could even start. Looking to both sides of the car with a silent prayer that we don’t get in a car accident, I find a parking space and pull in.
Throwing the door open, I get out with as much sass as my bittersweet heart can muster. “Get out. We’re here.”
And before Sabrina can say anything more, I add my final words, giving her a warning look.
“And help me find something pretty.”
44
River
She had to choose fucking Jason.
I always hated that guy, mister ‘Runs the Debate Club even Though He’s A Few Years Older than the High School Girls.’ Bet he did it just to creep on Faith. My Faith, although right now she claims otherwise.
Fuck no.
I’m getting her back.
And the little girl… Dawn.
I might be a father. I’m too exhausted for anger. I thought I’d get to see her again. Finally, after all this time I’d waited, and here she is with another man – and a baby girl that might be mine. The timing is right.
Faith needs to know that no matter what, I’ll take care of her. Of both of them.
It can’t be like this.
I have to get her back. I drove there on my motorcycle and I was on the road right now, musing, getting honked at by some small-dicked truck behind me because I was sitting there, thinking about things more important than the goddamn fast lane.
Turning to the left quickly and circling back around, I go back. She has to listen to me. She can’t be so indifferent, so hateful, when I’d been so in love. I refuse to believe it.
I turn and stop at a street somewhere before her house. I pull out my phone, wondering if I
should call her again, if I should fix my hair to see if that’d give off a better impression, or if I should just do anything at all. Wondering if her number is still even the same. I doubt that it is. So much has changed…
To my surprise, I have a text.
There’s no way of knowing how the hell Sabrina got my number, but I don’t object. I open my phone again and look for the text, trying to make sure I am at the right place.
Based on the beautiful white gazebo – and by beautiful, I mean that there was no way in hell Faith would stand in there with Jason – and the flowers adorning the place, I’m pretty sure this is the right place, but there might be other chapels nearby.
Nope.
Numbers on the door match up to the ones on my phone.
They are having a dress rehearsal today. The wedding is in two days.
So I have less than 48 hours to enact my plan. Fuck that. And fuck the fact that smug Jason and all those other men in there would be wearing suits. I can get on just fine without having to dress up, thank you very fucking much.
Walking the path feels weird, but I don’t let it show. I open the door, expecting to see groups of people all lined up in rows to see my beautiful girl prepare herself for marrying the wrong man. There’s nothing in there. The door is unlocked, so I guess people would be expecting others to come in, but…
Nothing.
This is weird. I don’t know how to feel about it, or if I should feel something about it. I need to chill out and stop assuming the worst, but, fuck…
It’s in my nature to be a jackass.
Faith would never consider marrying this fuck if I hadn’t run off to accept a boxing contract. And it’s my goddamn fault, everything that happened.
I knew I’d break her heart by leaving.
I knew I’d break it more if I kissed her before I left.
And in the end, I didn’t just kiss her… I slept with her. I made Faith Collins a woman.
And I disappeared the next day.
Nothing I could do would make that better. I’m such a jackass. And while boxing has done well for me, it just doesn’t compare… Sure, the money’s great, and the women are, too, but I could make it without the money, and the girls are just extras. I need Faith. Need her.
It’s so damn hard not to punch the shitty white walls that I walk past.
This room is large and airy in some kind of twisted way, like it’s waiting for something terrible to happen, and only I can stop it. There’s an organ set up in the far corner with a sheet tossed over half of it, as if it was either just taken out or put away without a single fuck given. I nod my head to whomever did that. They’re the only person with any sense in this place. Past the instrument is an ugly stack of chairs and a few tables scattered around. None of them is set.
Good.
I hope they never will be.
I make my way through the room looking for any sign of the beautiful bookish girl my Faith had grown from.
Skin on skin.
What the fuck.
My eyes widen as I take in the scene before me. It’s a couple, getting each other’s clothing off in a hurried frenzy. I try to make out their features.
Jason…
I only recognize his face because of how hard I wanted to hit him before, when I first saw him with Faith at that party three years ago and when I saw him today, kissing on her like she was his property or some shit.
And the girl…
It all comes back to me in a flash.
I’d forgotten all about that party. The night after it was enough memory for me.
The flash of hair and the too-glossed lips that had upgraded to lipstick, kissing Jason’s shoulder. I bet she still has the same bitchy tone when she speaks to people she deems unworthy of her presence.
Fucking Becky.
Well, actually, Jason fucking Becky.
I can’t see much from here, so I move closer. Might as well get some enjoyment out of shaming them.
I’m so angry. I see red. And tones of pink. Flesh. They’re clinging to each other like sexed up sea urchins, their moans and gasps filling the room where seconds earlier there was just silence.
I thought there’d been dead silence, at least.
Clearly, I was wrong.
I want to break his douche face in. Prove a point. Defend Faith.
Instead, I clutch my fists at my side and breathe deeply. I have to be the better man. I have to leave, right the fuck now, before I do something I’ll regret.
I back away from them and stop for a second. I have to think.
Faith has to know. But there’s no way she will believe me over Jason.
So I take out my phone, snap a picture of them, and stick my phone back in the pocket it came from.
Then I go searching.
Eventually, I find Sabrina, standing with her hair up in rows as she pins flowers to them.
Time to break the ice.
“Sabrina,” I say darkly. “I have to talk to you. I just…”
And it is then that I see her. Faith’s daughter.
She’s standing behind Sabrina, peeking around her hip. She’s so cute, with an upturned nose and freckles all over her cheeks just like Faith.
Sabrina finally notices me and crosses her arms protectively in front of her body, shielding the little girl from my eyes. “What the hell, River?” she says. “You’re supposed to be with Faith by now. You’re late!”
“Wait,” I beg her, raising my hands in defense. I open my palms, closing them and opening them against so she can see I’m not here to fight. I’m a boxer, but this stance is different. I would never hit a girl – especially not Faith’s friend.
I need to get it out now.
“Don’t you dare say a word,” Sabrina ushers Dawn slightly behind and to the side of her, keeping her hidden in her poofy skirts. I can still see her, so I raise an eyebrow to ask her what she thinks that’s supposed to do. She just narrows her eyes at me, and it’s hard to keep from laughing.
But this is serious. I put my hands down from my face just in time to see Sabrina pick up some sort of practice bouquet with flowers I can’t recognize.
“Jason’s cheating on her,” I try to be casual about it but I’m so desperate, I just blurt it out. I’m already taking my phone out of my pocket before she can express doubt. She raises her hands then, like she’s defending herself from me now, and I stop.
“I don’t want to see,” her voice is breaking.
So she knew.
“Sabrina, I just saw them together,” I finally manage to get out. “They’re in the fucking closet, making out minutes before your goddamn rehersal dinner.”
“Shut up,” Sabrina hisses at me. She grabs me by my shirt and giving Dawn a comforting look. “Auntie Sabrina will be right back, okay, darling?”
Dawn nods doubtfully and my heart is screaming at me to comfort her, make her feel better. But Sabrina’s already dragged me outside, pressed me against a wall in the hallway and is shouting angry words in my face.
“Of course I knew, jackass. Why’d you think I was so desperate for you to see Faith? She needs to know, but I can’t tell her.” She sighs deeply, pushing me away and rubbing her eyes. “I don’t know how to deal with this.”
“You have to tell her,” I insist. “Wouldn’t you want to know if you fiancé was screwing some random mean girl from high school behind your back?”
“What?”
A shocked whisper comes from behind us.
Sabrina and I stare at each other, and I can only assume all the color has drained from my face as it has from hers. Slowly, so fucking slowly, I turn around to find Faith standing right in front of me.
Fuck. She heard everything.
And she looks beautiful, in a gorgeous floral dress that shows off her dainty features. Her hair’s up, and it makes me want to kiss her neck, mark it with deep red and purple marks.
“Faith, you look…” I start with a shaky voice, but she raises a hand in the air to stop
me. Her fingers are trembling, and it hurts so fucking much to see her this way.
“Is it true?” she whispers.
We’re both quiet, with Sabrina breathing heavily behind me.
“Is it fucking true?” Faith repeats, her voice shaky.
Finally, Sabrina saves me, stepping in front of me. “Oh, darling,” she says, her voice breaking. And Faith whimpers, a soft, helpless sound. Sabrina reaches for her, but she’s already running off.
“Fuck,” I curse under my breath, my heart threatening to break through my chest. “Fucking hell. I’ve ruined everything again.”
45
Faith
Jason is unmoving.
I’ve never been the type of girl to like conflict – I actively avoid it. I only yelled at River to convince him that I had changed, to convince myself I’m not the same girl who needs him anymore – but, after giving so much to him, I expected him to at least care.
I started having my doubts about Jason when he started coming home from work later and later, saying there were scheduling issues. But he’s taken good care of me and Dawn, and, well, I need something normal so badly…
Of course.
Of course, this would happen to me. I never loved Jason, but that didn’t mean I deserve… This. Because, clearly, he didn’t love me either.
He raises his hand to try to touch my shoulder, but I jump away from him as if he’s a snake. He is poison. I tried so hard to be the most caring girlfriend – and fiancée – I could be for him, but clearly… It wasn’t enough.
“We’ll be okay, sweetheart,” he says, and I recoil again. I feel physically sick. I’m going to puke. I read about these things happening, about how it could feel like your heart decided to switch places and then just randomly dive down to your stomach, but I hadn’t expected it to happen.
No.
I hadn’t loved him, but it still hurt.
“No,” I shake my head, blinking away tears. Why am I crying? It doesn’t matter. None of it does. The ring on my hand is already coming off anyway, pushed in his face and dropped to the floor. He looks stunned. He didn’t expect this from me…
