Decline (Declan Reede: The Untold Story #1)

by Michelle Irwin

  If I closed my eyes, I could almost pretend Alyssa was beside me. After a while, I twisted to lie on my back between the roots of the tree, feeling the cool, shadowed ground beneath me and enjoying the slight breeze in the air. I kept my eyes closed and felt at peace. For the first time in a long time, I was able to turn my mind off. I still saw Alyssa as soon as my eyes were closed, but I didn’t fight it.

  Instead, I spent my time revisiting all my favourite features; the way her fingers curl through the ends of her hair when she’s nervous, the almost opaque colour of her skin, and the soft honey-gold gaze that burned me from inside in the best possible way. From there, my thoughts turned to Phoebe. I wondered how many traits she’d inherited from Alyssa. How much was she like me?

  A spark of curiosity burned deep within me, and I realised I wanted to know more about her. I wanted to know everything about her. With that thought in my mind, I was determined that somehow Alyssa and I would make it work.

  My mobile rang, startling me back to reality.

  “Hello?”

  “Declan. It’s Dr. Henrikson. I believe you wanted to talk to me urgently.”

  “Fuck. I mean, shit, thanks for calling back. I just didn’t expect you to call so soon.”

  “You asked me to call you back today. I assume you have something you need to discuss.”

  “I actually didn’t think you’d check your messages until tomorrow. But, Doc, I have to apologise, for . . . well . . . for the last time we spoke. I guess I just didn’t know what was fucking going on in my head.”

  “That is usually the reason for seeing a psychiatrist isn’t it?”

  I settled back to the ground with my eyes closed and the phone pressed to my ear. “I guess.”

  “I have to admit, I was a little bit surprised you decided to reach out to the two-bit quack again though.”

  “Shit, you know I didn’t fucking mean that.”

  “I’ve known you long enough to know you don’t say anything you don’t mean, at least on some level. Enough about last time though. To what do I owe the pleasure now?”

  “I need to sort some shit out. And trust me, I’ve got some deep fucking shit to sort out.”

  “Are you back on the drugs, Declan? Is that why you’ve been crashing?”

  Why does every fucker have an opinion on why I’ve been fucking crashing? “No. I’m not back on the fucking drugs. I just need to fucking know whether you’ll help me with some phone sessions over the next few weeks.”

  “I can probably pencil you in. I can have Lucy call you in the morning. Are there any particular times of day that would be better for you?”

  “Any time is fine. I just need at least one a day for the next few weeks.”

  “Every day?”

  “Yep.”

  He seemed to consider it for a while. “I guess if you want a session a day, I can get Lucy to squeeze you in.”

  I smiled to myself. An hour a day on the phone with Dr. Henrikson would be absolutely worth a date every night with Alyssa. After all, she was the one who made me agree to the condition of one date per session. She’d never specified how many sessions she wanted me to have though, or a maximum number. It was a loophole of her creation, I was just happily dancing through it.

  I said goodbye to Dr. Henrikson and placed my phone on my stomach. Without his voice in my ear, I greeted my visions of Alyssa again. I must have started to drift off to sleep because a sound near my head jolted me back to consciousness. I turned my head to see what it was, and was greeted by a sight that made me leap to my feet in surprise: a pair of turquoise eyes, and a shining bright smile, set in a tiny little face surrounded by a curtain of brown hair.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: TWO ON ONE

  “FU—” I THREW my hand over my mouth before the word could come out. Truthfully, she’d scared the hell out of me. I hadn’t expected to see Phoebe again so soon and I definitely hadn’t expected her to fucking sneak up on me while I was lying beneath the tree which held so many perfect memories for me. I looked up and saw Alyssa standing timidly by our table.

  I stared at Alyssa as if she were an apparition. Just moments ago, I’d had my eyes closed and was going over her face and body in my mind again and again. Seeing her for real, I realised my memory was not accurate. In my memory, Alyssa was beautiful. Standing in front of me she was fucking astronomical—nothing less than an Aphrodite.

  Alyssa stared at me too, seemingly just as transfixed.

  “Look, Mummy, it’s your friend, Declan.” Phoebe’s voice suddenly filled the air between us, drawing my attention.

  “That’s right, sweetie,” Alyssa cooed at Phoebe. She walked a few steps farther into the park. “I don’t think we’ll stay here tonight though, Declan probably wants to be alone.”

  “No,” I said quickly. “Don’t leave on my account.” I wasn’t sure why Alyssa was there, so far from her house, but I didn’t want to force her out. “Why don’t you stay?”

  Alyssa stared at me, no doubt trying to figure out how sincere I was.

  “I need to talk to you anyway,” I continued. “I mean—if that’s okay with you?”

  Alyssa looked undecided for a few moments. She glanced at Phoebe and I could almost see her weighing up her options. When she started walking over to me, I breathed a fucking sigh of relief. I sat back down on the grass and she sat beside me. After unloading a few toys from a backpack she was carrying, she threw a small soft soccer ball at Phoebe who squealed and started to throw it away and chase it around.

  Alyssa watched me cautiously. “What did you want to talk about?”

  “I did it.” I smirked at her, knowing she had no idea what I was talking about. “I called Dr. Henrikson, my psychiatrist, and he’s going to organise for me to start sessions tomorrow.” I didn’t want to tell her I’d arranged daily sessions just yet, otherwise she might try to stitch up the loophole.

  She raised her eyebrow at me. “That was fast. I’d expected you to think it over a little bit first.”

  I shrugged. “What’s to think over? I’ve already told you I want to make a go of this,” I waved my hand between the two of us. “You’ve already told me that to do that I need to see a fu—” Her eyes narrowed and shot over to glance at Phoebe before settling back on me. Right, I’ve got to watch my fucking language. “—that I need to see a shrink.”

  She shook her head sadly. “It’s not going to be a quick fix.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You think I don’t fucking know that?”

  I put my hand over my mouth once I realised I had let loose a fucking swear word. I was used to talking without swearing when I fucking needed to, like at press conferences and shit like that, but when it came to any emotive issues, the words tended to just fucking fall out without any conscious thought. I realised it was going to take a lot of effort to watch my mouth around Phoebe.

  She stared down at her hands. “You’ve done a lot of hurtful things.”

  I sighed. “I know. And I can never really apologise enough for them all. But we had a good day today, didn’t we?”

  She nodded. “Yes.” Her eyes remained fixed on her hands.

  “What is it, Alyssa? Please talk to me.”

  “I keep waiting for it to happen.”

  “For what to happen?” I asked, confused at her change of tack.

  “For the moment you run away.”

  I put my finger on her chin and directed it toward me until I could capture her gaze. “I’m done running, Alyssa. Running hasn’t made me happy. It hasn’t made anyone happy.”

  Her gaze penetrated through me, right through to the very depths of my soul—or at least the parts of it that were undamaged after my recent discoveries. She seemed to be searching for something. She shrugged and looked away. “We’ll see.”

  The sadness in her voice made my jaw clench.

  I knew there was no point fucking arguing. The only way to convince her that I had changed was to fucking show her that I had changed. And there was no time like
now to start. “So are we on for tomorrow night then?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I’ve got a session with the doc tomorrow, so that means you owe me one date. If we’re going one for one, like we agreed, it’ll be easier to have the date on the same day as the session won’t it? So we don’t fu—so we don’t lose count.”

  She laughed a little, but it wasn’t a proper laugh; there was no joy in it. “Aren’t you getting sick of me yet? You’ve seen me every day since being in Brisbane.”

  I brought my hand up to her face, wrapping my fingers around her cheek. There was a brief second when she closed her eyes and leaned into my hand. “And if I had my way, I’d see you every day the whole time I’m here.” I still wasn’t going to tell her my plan about daily dates, but I was damn certain I would make it work somehow.

  She recoiled, but I wasn’t sure whether it was from my words or my touch. I saw there were tears in her eyes and they were threatening to spill. “I can’t . . . I’m not going to pretend everything is perfect—”

  Phoebe selected that moment to interrupt. Apparently she was bored of playing by herself with the ball. I grabbed it from her gently and then cast what I hoped was a winning smile but really I had no idea, because I’d never been a kid person, so I had no fucking clue what I was doing or what to expect. “Do you want to play soccer?”

  Phoebe scrunched her nose up; her blue eyes sparkled in the slowly fading sunlight. “What’s that?”

  “It’s a game. You kick the ball up the field and try to get it in the goal.”

  She tilted her head to one side. “What’s a goal?”

  “In soccer, it’s a piece of metal that’s shaped like this”—I made the shape of a soccer goal with my fingers—“and it has a net on the back.”

  She looked up and down the field, obviously trying to find the goals. “There’s none. We can’t play.”

  “Sure we can.” I pulled myself to a kneeling position and whispered into her ear, “We can pretend there are goal posts.” Then I pulled back and furrowed my brow. “Do you know what pretend means?” She was fucking three, I didn’t know what shit she did or didn’t know.

  She nodded enthusiastically. “It’s when it’s not real. Like my daddy, I pretend him all the time.”

  It was such an innocent statement, said with no malice or hatred, and yet somehow it hurt more than the worst fucking insult that had ever been hurled at me. How the fuck could a three-year-old girl know exactly what to say to break my fucking heart? I closed my eyes and took a shaky breath.

  “Declan, you don’t have to do this, we can go,” Alyssa said, already halfway over to Phoebe.

  I shook my head, steeled my resolve and plastered a fake smile on my face. “How about a game of two-on-one?”

  Alyssa seemed to consider it for a moment and then nodded. I picked up my phone and slid it into my pocket. Then I grabbed her backpack and moved it over to the side of the park and we started our impromptu game of two-on-one soccer. Technically, it was Alyssa and Phoebe against me, but what happened in reality was that Alyssa or I would kick the ball softly to Phoebe who would boot it in any direction and jump up and down declaring she got it in the goal. She was too fucking cute to argue with.

  The game continued for around half an hour or so until Phoebe decided she was bored with it and wanted to pick flowers instead. Who knew that three-year-olds could be so fucking fickle?

  Alyssa and I walked slowly behind Phoebe as she started to duck in and out of the trees around the park finding flowers and yanking the tops off. Then she’d get bored with the one she’d picked and move on to another colour.

  “Why did you come here, Declan?” Alyssa asked quietly.

  “I don’t know. Mum was out and I didn’t see the point hanging around home when I couldn’t even get in the fucking house.”

  “Please watch your mouth,” Alyssa said, but she smirked, so there was no real anger.

  “Sorry.” I shrugged. “Habit.”

  She nodded. “You’ll work on that, won’t you?”

  I grinned at her, before giving her a little wink. “I’ll try.”

  She laughed at the reference to our previous conversation. “Fair enough. That doesn’t explain why you came here though, just why you’re not at home.”

  I stopped walking for a second, contemplating what she was asking. Why did I go to our park? Did I even really know? “I guess I just wanted to be reminded how good we were. We were good weren’t we?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, we were good.”

  “Until I fucked it up.”

  She smacked my arm with her eyes opened wide, motioning in Phoebe’s direction, but then chuckled. “Yeah, until then.”

  We fell into silence as we walked side by side. I could hear Phoebe talking to herself and to the trees and to any-fucking-thing that would listen.

  “Well, I told you why I’m here. Why are you here?”

  “Phoebe and I come here almost every day. It’s the one place that’s just ours. Don’t get me wrong, I am so grateful for all the support I get from Flynn and my family, but sometimes I think I just need some time to be alone with her. This place always held so many good memories for me.” She kept quiet on the bad ones.

  “I’m sorry for intruding on it. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather I left?”

  She shook her head. I reached out and grabbed her hand in mine. She didn’t pull away which made me smile. She glanced over at me and smiled in reply. It was like it always had been—when I was with Alyssa none of the other shit mattered, nothing else mattered, but then we’d part company and all my shitty thoughts would come flooding back in.

  Phoebe came back to us with three flowers in her hands. “Mummy, which one do you want?”

  Alyssa put on a look of mock concentration. “Um, let me see. The yellow one?”

  Phoebe beamed at her and passed her the yellow one.

  It was still so surreal seeing the blend of Alyssa and me in a walking, talking little package. A fucking cute little package with the perfect mix of each of us. I began to wonder what she would look like as she grew, and instantly regretted the thought because she would get older—and no doubt prettier—and then she would date.

  Fuck me.

  I didn’t even want to think about that but I couldn’t help it. Questions came unbidden into my mind. Would she have her heart broken by some dick? Would she find someone who was good to her? Would she be the sort to go to clubs and fuck random arsehole strangers? God, I hoped not. It may have been hypocritical of me—in fact there was no fucking may about it, it was hypocritical of me—but she was too good for that. She was too good for every fucking man who walked this earth or ever would. My free hand went to the bridge of my nose as I tried to put the thoughts out of my head before I went fucking crazy. For some unknown reason, I had a sudden compulsion to lock her into a room and never let her back out again.

  Alyssa seemed to sense my stress, or maybe she just fucking knew my tells too well, and gripped my hand a little more tightly with hers, as if trying to hold me in place. “What is it, Declan?”

  I knew it would sound stupid to Alyssa, fuck it sounded stupid to me, but I wanted to be honest with her. I didn’t want her to imagine the worst possible scenario for what was stressing me out. I looked at Alyssa, stress eating me alive from the inside. “She’s going to date.”

  A look of shock passed across Alyssa’s features for a second before she burst out laughing. She laughed so hard, for so long, that tears started to run down her face. Phoebe started to chuckle at Alyssa. I stood there open mouthed because that was not the fucking reaction I expected. My stress grew into aggravation as the laughter continued. The longer the laughter went on, the more my irritation grew.

  “I’m glad you find it fucking amusing,” I snapped.

  Alyssa wiped a tear from her eye. “Sorry. It’s just . . . well, for someone who wasn’t sure he even was ready for this you’ve jumped on the protective ship pretty quickly.” />
  She seemed to choose her words carefully. I noticed she hadn’t used the words “dad” or “father.”

  “It’s all right, Declan. That’s years away. And when the time comes, I’ll deal with it.”

  I shook my head and pulled Alyssa closer to me. “No. We’ll deal with it. Together.”

  Alyssa dropped my hand and looked away with a frown. The shift in her demeanour was instant and confusing.

  “What is it?” I asked, reaching for her arm.

  “Just stop making promises you won’t keep,” she hissed back at me. “Especially around her. I can deal with another broken heart, she shouldn’t have to.”

  “Lys, I—”

  She shot me a glare that froze my blood and stilled my tongue. Every ounce of agony and anger she’d experienced poured from the momentary eye contact. Then, scooping Phoebe up into her arms, she made a beeline for her backpack.

  Placing Phoebe on the ground near the bag, Alyssa knelt in front of her and whispered, “We’re going home now, honey. Okay?”

  Phoebe shook her head. “I want to play some more.”

  Alyssa closed her eyes and sighed. “Please sweetie, Mummy needs to go now. If you’re a good girl we’ll get a treat later, okay?”

  Phoebe pouted but didn’t complain. Alyssa started roughly shoving the toys back into the bag. I walked over and started to help but she pulled the bag off me.

  “I can do it on my own, Dec,” she said. Something told me she wasn’t just talking about the bag.

  “Alyssa, how can I get you to trust me?” I asked, needing an answer to that question more than ever before.

  “I can’t . . . I just don’t . . .” Alyssa just shook her head. She waved her hand at me in dismissal, put the bag over one shoulder, hitched Phoebe onto her hip and practically ran from the park. “I don’t know if I can.”

  “Now who’s running?” I shouted after her. I was pissed. I knew I had no right to my anger, but I couldn’t help it. My irritation was already at its maximum because of her laughter over my protective streak. Her running away only made it spike.

  She didn’t respond and just kept going, disappearing into the trees before long. The last thing I saw was my little girl turn and blow me a kiss before waving goodbye.