“I had a chance to live out my dream, to sing. You can’t fault me for that.” Some days, even during his busiest tour seasons, he had regretted that decision. He didn’t regret living out his dream, just not taking her with him.
She stood up and began pacing. She had to say it. He was going to leave any day now and he had to know. She had to tell him now before she lost her nerve. He deserved the truth. Pivoting on her heel she faced him. “I was pregnant,” she whispered.
“I couldn’t pass up…wait, what?” It was then that Ryder noticed the Yamaha sitting on a stand beside the entertainment center. Images flashed through his mind. Pieces of this crazy puzzle were slowly fitting together to create a picture.
“You left me and I was pregnant.” She looked away, afraid that the pent up anger would resurface at any moment.
Ryder looked back at her. “Why in the world didn’t you tell me?” It was taking everything he had to not scream at her, to not throw things against the wall.
“I tried.” Cassie paced the space between the entertainment center and the coffee table, again. “If you remember, I called you over that day because I had something important to talk to you about.”
“Tried?” he asked in disbelief. And there it was. The anger had finally broken free. “I don’t recall ever hearing about a baby,” he yelled.
She couldn’t bear to face him now. She turned her back to him. “You came in so excited about your music deal. I tried to tell you that I had something important to say but you said you were leaving. You were going to record your first album and then plan your tour with the band that you’d be opening for.” Every sentence rushed out of her in a shaky, barely audible, breath.
“That is no excuse.” Now he was beyond angry, he was furious. There was no way he was taking the blame for this.
“You said ‘I’m sorry Cass, I can’t pass this up.’ Then you just walked out the door. No goodbye, no farewell kiss, nothing. I got nothing. After everything we had gone through, all the love we shared, I got absolutely zilch.” She finally gathered the strength to face him. “I never saw you again.” She pointed a shaky finger at him. “You didn’t even call after you left that day. Jared heard from you but me, the one you claimed to love, I didn’t so much as get a letter.”
What she was saying was the truth. He was guilty of being a jerk and leaving without a goodbye. And she was right; he never called or wrote to her. He was too afraid that he would either miss her so much that he’d give up his dream for her or that she’d tell him that she had moved on. His heart would not have been able to handle that.
On the other hand, she had plenty of options. She could have run after him that night, insistent that he listen to her. Or she could have stopped by his house the night before he left and told him. Another option would have been to tell his mother about the pregnancy so she could pass along the information. He would have been more than happy to take up his role as a father.
He pointed at the guitar. “So is Lucas mine?”
Shocked eyes looked back at him. “How did you know?”
He continued to point at the guitar. “The Yamaha. I bought it for a little boy I met at the music store today. Lucas.”
Cassie gasped, she hadn’t known that. Her father brought the guitar over earlier, said a friend bought it for the boy. She hadn’t even seen Lucas yet. He had been on vacation with her parents in Florida visiting her brother. She didn’t even know that they were back in Texas until this morning. “I…My dad brought it over a while ago.”
He threw his hands up in the air, letting them fall back down to his sides, smacking his thighs. “Great Cass, real freaking great. That is my boy. Mine.”
“I’m sorry.” What more could she say?
“I want custody.” His eyes blazed. “I deserve to raise my own kid.”
“You can’t take him from me.” She fell to her knees. “He’s my world. I’ll die if you take him away.”
His nostrils flared with each inhalation. “I really don’t care at this point. He’s mine and I fully intend to sue you for custody. You know that I have the money to make it happen.”
Sobs racked her whole body. She reached out to him but he stepped away from her touch.
“If you’re lucky, I’ll let you see him in about eight years or so.” He turned around and stormed out of the house, slamming the door behind him.
Cassie ran to the front door, throwing it open. Ryder crawled into his Mercedes, slamming the door shut. He saw her standing in the doorway. Hitting the steering wheel with the palms of his hands, he peeled out of the driveway.
She watched him until he turned the corner and was out of sight. She closed the door, leaned her back against the wood and slid down to the floor. Heartache and pain was once again her friend. There were no words to describe the way she felt. Excruciating pain didn’t even come close.
Burying her face in her knees, she cried until her voice was hoarse and her throat was raw.
Ryder couldn’t believe this. Cassie had known that she was pregnant with his child and failed to mention it to him. Didn’t she know that he would have stayed? At the very least he would have found a way to record his music and still be home. Instead she had hid his son from him. Oh how that made his blood boil.
He looked at the tiny black box in his hand. Yeah, there was no way he was going to need that anymore. He tossed it into the back seat, not caring whether or not he ever saw it again.
The more he thought about it the angrier he became. Not only did she not tell him back then that she was pregnant but she hadn’t told him since he’d come back either. That’s the part that stung the most.
Ryder drove his car around town hoping to cool off. Unfortunately, he only grew angrier. It seemed that the more he drove, the more he thought about the betrayal, and the more his temper flared.
He arrived at Jared’s house and found his friend standing in front of the window unit, shirtless. “I really need to think about some real air conditioning,” Jared said, glancing over at Ryder as he entered the house. “This heat is for the birds.”
“Yes, you do.” Ryder stripped off his own shirt. “Where’s Allie?”
“Cassie’s.” He sat in a chair. “Want to talk about it?”
Ryder took Jared’s place in front of the window unit. “Why didn’t any of you tell me about Lucas?”
Jared left the room to get two ice cold beers from the fridge. Handing one of them to Ryder, he sat back down. “It wasn’t my place.”
“Don’t give me that crap. You’ve had eight years to tell me this.” He drained the entire beer in two gulps, sucking in a much needed lungful of air afterward. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, letting out a loud manly belch.
Jared crossed his left foot over his knee. “True, but you still walked out on her without as much as a goodbye. You called me twice a month over the last eight years. How many times did you call Cassie?”
Ryder pointed the neck of his beer bottle at Jared. “That is not fair.”
“Maybe that’s how Cassie feels, that it’s not fair. She is a single mother and believe me when I say it’s been a tough road for her.” Jared stood. “She never goes to the club on Friday nights. Do you know why? Because she’d rather be with her son. Her life consists of work, house work, and her son.”
“I have no doubts that it has been tough raising a child all alone.” Ryder was beginning to yell at his friend now, his anger to the point of molten lava. “But still, you should have said something to me. You’re my friend, the one person I can count on and you sided with her to keep me from my own kid.”
“Maybe if you’d had called her at least once,” Jared started but was cut off before he could finish.
Ryder refrained from throwing the beer bottle at the wall. “You can all go to hell.” He felt betrayed by everyone. Cassie should have told him but his friend should have acted as his friend and told him about the pregnancy when she didn’t.
Jared was the one person he
kept in contact with over the years and the idiot never once said anything about the boy. This was just great. Lies and betrayal by everyone. Then his mother’s face floated through his thoughts. Did she know and not tell him? She had left town several months after he did. She had plenty of opportunity to learn of Cassie’s pregnancy.
He had to get out of here. His temper was at a dangerous level and he needed to leave before someone got hurt. He tossed the bottle into the trashcan and left the house.
Ryder once again crawled into his Mercedes. He needed to think things over. He backed out of the driveway. There was far too much activity floating around in his brain at the moment. He drove blindly, not because he couldn’t see but his focus was on his son and the years he had lost.
Without realizing how he got there, Ryder pulled up in front of the building that all of his equipment was stored in. The building was just outside of the residential area at the edge of town. He killed the engine. Behind those locked doors he would find comfort.
He flipped the switch and the room lit up. Making sure to lock the door behind him, he crossed the room to pick up his old friend. The guitar was a sight for sore eyes. He strummed the strings. Just a day without being used and she already needed tuning.
He plucked the strings, not aiming to play anything in particular. Time passed by and his plucking turned into strumming. Chords poured out of him with the release of his anger. Little by little words formed to the music.
“Silver blade across my vein. Cold, unrelenting, unforgiving.” That is what Cassie’s confession felt like tonight. “Simple task to turn the blade. Slice the flesh.” Her betrayal couldn’t have hurt worse if she had sliced his flesh with a sharp blade.
A tear escaped, slipped down his cheek to land on his arm. He stopped playing to wipe it away. The wet spot on his forearm would drive him crazy otherwise. As the music was silenced, Ryder heard a knock on the door.
He was pretty sure that Jared wouldn’t come looking for him, his friend would be smart enough to know that he needed some time to cool off. So, who was at the door? No one else knew that he had bought this abandoned building to house his equipment.
Slowly, he walked to the door. Another round of knocking. Whoever it was, they weren’t going away. He opened the door and was stunned to find Cassie’s father standing on the other side.
Ryder raised an eyebrow. “Hello, Mr. Strong.” He motioned for the older man to come inside.
“Hello, Ryder. I hope you don’t mind the intrusion.” Mr. Strong crossed the room and took a seat on the only stool in the place.
“That depends.” Ryder leaned against the wall, arms crossed. “If you’re here to plead on Cassie’s behalf, please don’t. I have no intentions on backing off. I want my son. Case closed.”
“I understand that. I would be furious if I were in your shoes.” Mr. Strong figured Ryder would be more apt to listen if he could connect with him on a father to father level. “I would absolutely pitch a fit if one of my children had been hidden from me.”
“So you understand why I’m suing for custody then?” Ryder relaxed his shoulders when the older man nodded. “I didn’t make this decision to hurt Cassie.” At the sight of Mr. Strong’s raised eyebrow he rephrased that statement. “Okay. Initially, I wanted Cassie to hurt as much as I was hurting but I just want to know my son. He is my son after all.” He put emphasis on that last statement.
“Yes he is and you do deserve to know your boy.” The two men stared at one another, not saying a word, for a couple of minutes. Mr. Strong could see the war taking place in Ryder’s mind. The man was hurt, deeply. The young man also loved his daughter, Cassie, very much.
Ryder’s emotions were playing tug of war. At one end of the rope, his emotions pulled for him to gain all rights and control over his son. To take his son away and let Cassie suffer the same loss he had. At the opposite end of this rope, his emotions struggled to pull him back to his senses. To forgive Cassie. To work on developing his family with her instead of trying to form it without her.
Mr. Strong looked down at the notebook he held in his hands. He ran his fingers over the dusty thing. It had been sitting in Cassie’s old closet for years.
Ryder followed his gaze and noticed, for the first time, what the man held. He didn’t say anything. He waited patiently for Cassie’s father to speak.
“I dug this out of a box in Cassie’s old room tonight. It’s yours.” He blew the remaining dust off and handed it to Ryder. “I know you think Cassie purposely kept you from your son. I don’t deny that my daughter did the wrong thing. She should have told your mother and asked for a way to contact you.”
Ryder couldn’t agree more. “Exactly. I would have come back if I had known.”
“What you have to understand is that Cassie also felt betrayed. She felt like what the two of you shared was nothing more than a high school fling. I’m not sure on the details of your goodbye but I do know that it stung my daughter’s heart so deeply that she spent those first three months in her room crying. Allie couldn’t even get her to go out except for doctor’s appointments.”
Ryder touched the edges of the notebook, flirting with the idea of opening it. “Three months of depression?” Dang, that was some severe depression. The anger in him slowly dissolved, turning into sadness.
Leaving his girlfriend behind to pursue his career was bad enough but knowing that she locked herself away from the world seriously made him want to puke. He hadn’t realized the effect that his decision had had on her. He had been a fool. He had known that for quite some time now.
In the beginning, when his loneliness was almost unbearable, he tried to soothe the ache with alcohol and sex. It helped to take his mind off of Cassie but it never truly filled that void. He didn’t understand why he felt so hollow all of those years until recently.
When he came home and saw Cassie for the first time, his love for her resurfaced. It had never disappeared, never faded. He had just ignored it to satisfy his longing to be a rock star. But that wasn’t news to him, he’d come to this realization the other night. He knew deep down that she was the one, always had been.
“I think you should read that notebook.” Mr. Strong stood. “You know where to find me if you need me.” He clapped Ryder on the shoulder and left.
Ryder stared at the closed door for a moment. Curiosity gnawed away at him until he finally opened the worn out notebook.
The first page was titled You Suck. Below that, a picture had been taped to the page. It was a picture of him and Cassie the night before their high school graduation. He had snuck up behind her that night and snapped the photo as he kissed her cheek.
Below the photo was a short message. “Ryder, you suck donkey tail. I can’t believe you’d choose singing over me. Why can’t you have both? Oh and by the way, I’m pregnant.”
He turned the page. “Ryder, you’re a dang nincompoop. I sat across the street from your house and watched you pack up your things. I watched you drive away. You didn’t call, you didn’t even stop by the house to say goodbye.” A broken heart was drawn under the message. “I hate you!”
The next page had an ultrasound photo attached. “Today was my first check-up. The baby is fine. He looks like a little bean. Well, I don’t actually know if he is a boy. I won’t know that info for a while.” Another broken heart was drawn, this time with more squiggly lines to represent a shattered heart broken in two. “I don’t really hate you anymore. I’m just numb.”
Page after page was more of the same. A message about how great the baby was doing and how sad she was. Every few days she documented something, even if it was just one sentence to state how much she missed him or how bad it hurt that he’d left.
On the next page her attitude seemed to turn around. The page was titled, It’s a Boy! Another ultrasound picture was attached. This time instead of a tiny spot on the photo there was a very visible boy part. His son was not ashamed to show off what the good Lord gave him. He smiled. “That’s my bo
y.”
Cassie’s message was nothing like any of the others. “It’s a boy. I just knew it would be. I hope he has your eyes and your talent for music. Your mom left town yesterday. I should have talked to her but I was too afraid that she’d hate me for keeping this secret. That or she’d think that I was lying about him being yours. He’s perfect, just like you. I’m starting to feel him move, especially when I play Come Back. Yes, I own your very first CD.”
She drew a line of tiny hearts across the page then continued her note. “I went to your concert tonight. It was your first official concert and there was no way I was going to miss it.” She had been there? His first concert was in Utah which meant she had to fly just to see him open for the other band.
“You looked so good up there on stage. I’m so glad that you’re fulfilling your dream. I wish I could have had the courage to go say hi afterwards.” She drew a sad face. “But I was too chicken. Besides, I’m sure that you’ve forgotten all about me anyway. Oh, by the way…I love Come Back. Great job.”
She had no idea, but when he wrote that song he was writing about her. In the beginning of his tour he missed her laugh, her touch, even her smell. It drove him insane. He continued reading.
“Every time I listen to that song I pretend that you’re singing it to me, pleading with me to come back to you and make you whole. I know I’m foolish to hope for such things. I miss you. I will tell Lucas about you, about the man that I loved.”
The notebook continued on with snippets of her pregnancy, the birth, and the life of Lucas. She listed his weight and length for every baby check-up, pictures of birthdays, everything until his second birthday. There were no more pages left in the notebook.
Ryder sat in shock. Even in her anger, her time of hurt, she took the time to capture the life of his son just for him. She didn’t leave him out of their son’s life, she documented everything.
The more he thought of this, the less angry he was. Besides, it wasn’t her fault that he had left and never bothered to contact her. In reality, he brought this upon himself.
Love Redeemed Page 7
