Undeniable

by Serena Grey

  “I was on my way downstairs and the door was open,” she says, “and I saw it was you in here.”

  She looks tired, and for the first time, I notice the lines of her face, they’re few, but enough to think of how much time has passed.

  “Yes, I…” I smile, “I just wanted to see.”

  She nods and comes towards me, coming to sit beside me on the bed. “Did I ever tell you that this was my room when I was a girl?”

  I shake my head.

  She laughs. “Yes, but when I got married, and then Daniel,” she looks at me, “my brother got married too and moved into the master suite, I took the suite I use now - It used to be my grandmother’s- for whenever I came here with my husband.”

  She looks a little sad as she talks. I imagine she’s thinking about her brother and her husband. They had both died in the plane crash that made her a widow and Jackson and Blythe orphans.

  “I didn’t know.” I say.

  She shrugs.

  ‘I’m surprised it’s still the same though.” I say. "The same as when I left.”

  “Yes,” She pauses, looking as if she’s not sure if she should tell me. “I wanted to redecorate it,” She says finally, “but Jackson didn’t want that.”

  “Oh.” I’m momentarily lost for words. Did he keep the room here as a reminder of what... what we had been, or as a reminder of a mistake he made in the past. I have kept my memories too, made icons of everything he ever gave me, but that’s because I loved him with my whole being. What reason could he possibly have for keeping this reminder of my presence in Halcyon?

  “He stayed away for so long,” Constance continues, still talking about Jackson. “I thought he was working too hard, trying to prove that he was something more than the latest Lockewood heir.” She looks at me, “and he did prove himself you know? Even though there was always a position for him at Lockewood holdings, he preferred to make his own way, going to business school and taking an entry level position in an investment and management firm. That was before he started his own company, made a success out of it, and finally agreed to take over Lockewood holdings.” She pauses, “The family has always lived off our investments, but Jackson’s built more than just a company managing an investment portfolio. He’s taken the risks to build a productive business corporation.”

  I know that, I want to say. I know all that because we talked about those plans all those years ago, and afterwards, when I left Halcyon, I read everything about him that has ever been published, on the internet, in magazines, from articles on his business methods to his active social life. How pathetic did it make me? That while he worked hard and played hard, I obsessed over him day and night?

  “He was always very driven.” I say.

  She nods, “Yes, driven, determined and disciplined, except when it came to you.” After a long pause, she continues. “I didn't see it then. It wasn’t until after your accident that I realized you were the reason he’d been home so often in his senior year and that you were also the reason why he never came back after you left. He couldn't bear to come here and be reminded of you in every single room of this house.”

  Blythe had said almost the same thing, and even Jackson. “Another reason why he hates me.” I say with a small laugh.

  Constance frowns. “I wouldn’t assume that he hates you, dear.” She sighs. “When I remember what he was like after you left, I can’t imagine why I didn’t put it together sooner. If you had seen him then, seven years ago, you wouldn’t doubt that he loved you.”

  “Loved,” I reply, “Which means it was in the past, where all these talk and memories should remain.” I look squarely at her. “I’m not here to fan the dead embers of a long ago relationship which was always a mistake and should never have happened in the first place. After my job is done, I’ll leave, and all our lives can go back to what they were before I came back here.”

  She sighs. “You’re so angry.”

  “Yes.” I cry. “You know what I went through, and I went through it all alone, even more than what you’re aware of. So I’m angry, and I have no desire to remember, or relive the past in any way.”

  Her eyes are glistening as she looks at me. “I can’t stop feeling that I failed you in so many ways.” She sighs. “I should have told him about the baby.”

  I close my eyes as her words fill my ears, feeling the familiar pain starting to resurface. When I open my eyes, my fists are clenched so tightly I can feel my nails digging into my palms.

  “Don’t even mention that, Constance.”

  “Why not?” She demands, her frown one of confusion, “he deserves to know, he always deserved to know.”

  “No.” I say firmly, trying in vain to shut down the memories and the pain invading my mind. When I left Halcyon, my only thought had been to get as far away as I could from every reminder of Jackson’s rejection.

  I still remember with clarity how he had made love to me, and then told me coldly that he hated himself for it. The next morning, I left, and found my way to Chace’s new apartment in New York, where he was happy for me to stay until the fall semester resumed, or even for longer if I cared to.

  Being Chace, he was too involved in his books and research to notice that there was anything wrong with me, and I kept my misery to myself, letting the pain grow inside me like a cancer and eat away at my happiness until I felt like a shadow of who I used to be.

  I didn’t start feeling ill until school, when I was suddenly too weak to do the things everyone around me was doing, and feeling like I would collapse every time I exerted myself. It wasn’t long before I ended up at the school clinic and found out that I was three months pregnant.

  Jackson had always been careful, except for that one time in the gazebo, when his anger had made him forget, or stop caring. My baby had been conceived in anger and pain, but it was Jackson’s baby, the only thing I had left of him. I knew what my options were, but I never wanted anything as much as I wanted that baby. I was willing to sacrifice school, a career even, for a lifetime to treasure the one thing Jackson had given me that he could never take away.

  The next few days I alternated between euphoria at the knowledge that I was going to have a child of my own, to outright dejection at the thought that the father of my child wanted nothing to do with me. It was one of those days that I’d had the accident. I still don’t know what happened. One minute I’d been standing on the sidewalk waiting to cross, and the next, a cyclist shoved me out of the way, and that’s all I remembered when I woke up in the hospital.

  Aunt Constance was there. She was the one who told me I’d lost my baby. The agony was the worst thing I’d ever felt, and the knowledge that it was my fault.

  Constance had guessed then that the baby was Jackson’s, and when she asked me, I confessed everything, and begged her not to tell anyone about the baby, especially not Jackson.

  I left the hospital even more heartbroken than I’d been before, and in the next few months, I spiraled into a debilitating depression, where I spent whole days crying, unable to get out of bed, and not caring if I lived or died.

  I missed classes, tests, assignments. I almost dropped out of school, and I would have, if May hadn’t blackmailed me out of bed and practically forced me to start living again.

  Even though it all happened a long time ago, the misery is always fresh when I think about those days. How I buried myself in schoolwork to try to catch up in my classes, how I masked the pain by keeping myself so busy that I was always too exhausted to think. How I pushed myself, taking classes during the breaks and taking a busy job as a photographer’s assistant, so I never had to face the pain I had buried inside me.

  “Livvie…” Constance starts.

  “Why does he deserve to know anything?” I say bitterly. “I’ve dealt with it. He’s the lucky one who never had to. He didn’t lose anything. He didn’t end up on a hospital bed, afraid to lose the one thing that still mattered, only to be told it was too late.”

  “Yes” S
he agrees, “But if he had known he would never have left your side.”

  “Only because he would have felt that he had to.” I shake my head. “He hated me then and he hates me now. Telling him won't change that. I don’t want his pity, so let’s not talk about this anymore, please.”

  She doesn’t say anything, but I know from the expression on her face that she’ll leave it, for now.

  “Blythe said you had been ill.” I mention, a little out of concern, but also to change the subject.

  “Yes, but I’m better now.”

  “What was wrong?”

  “I had a stroke.” She smiles softly as if she still can’t believe it herself.

  “Oh!” I frown, “I’m so sorry."

  She shrugs. “It was stress related. I was unconscious for a while, and for a long time there was a little numbness on my right side, but I’m better now.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I say. “I didn't know.”

  “You couldn’t have.” She smiles. “These days I just try to avoid stress. I cut down on all my work, the board meetings, charity work….” She makes a dismissive gesture. “I was never going to work a day in my life, you know. Daniel would have been around to take care of Lockewood Holdings, and Jonathan, my husband, he wasn’t the career type. We’d have spent our lives travelling and spending money we never worked for.” She sighs, “My whole life changed when they died, suddenly I had two children to take care of, a family legacy to pass to the next generation, and a company that needed me on the board. I could have continued to travel and socialize, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave the children. Blythe was only five, and she used to cry for her mom every day. Jackson tried to be strong, but every morning his eyes would be red from crying all night.”

  Why is she telling me this? I don’t want to think of Jackson as a boy, miserable and missing his parents. I don’t want to feel this urge to take the man that boy has become in my arms, and comfort him.

  “I loved those children Livvie,” Constance continues, “I was all they had. Me, each other, and their memories, most of which are rooted in this house." She looks at me. “I spend a lot of time in Rhode island now. Jonathan had a house by the sea. He used to spend holidays there when he was a boy. We spent a lot of time there too, when he was alive.”

  “Do you like it there?”

  She nods. “But that’s not why I’m telling you. With me practically living there, and Blythe in the city, this house is unused, and Jackson will give it away."

  “He won’t”

  “He will, if he never gets over the memories keeping him away from here. I know he’s thinking about it.”

  Mrs. Shannon had mentioned the same thing. I can’t even imagine Halcyon without Lockewoods in it. For a moment, I allow myself to imagine a new generation of Lockewood children running through the house. Children with Jackson’s eyes, Jackson's smile, my children. I shake my head to clear the silly thought. “Have you considered that it might be the expense of maintaining a house as large as this?”

  “No,” she shakes her head. “The house is maintained by a trust that’s separately invested from the family money. If Jackson donates the house to the national trust, the trust will go with the house, so it’ll actually cost him more to give it away, in terms of his family legacy, his memories, and money.”

  “I don’t know what you think I can do…”

  She sighs. “I just hoped… “She shrugs. ‘I'm just a silly old woman looking for happy endings for everyone.”

  “You’re not old.” I tell her with a smile. “Maybe it's you who needs to fall in love and have a happy ending. That will make you feel young.”

  She smiles and gets up. “I’m going downstairs. It’s been so nice having a houseful of people again. Will you come down for dinner?"

  “Yes.”

  Later, when she has left me alone, I return to my room and change for dinner. Downstairs, the atmosphere is much the same as it is every other night. Blythe has Nick and Carl wrapped around her little finger, and they alternate between trying to entertain her with juicy city gossip, and listening with rapt attention as she talks. Constance is quiet, listening to the conversations but not taking part. Elaine, no longer sulking at losing all the male attention, has transferred her attention to Jackson. She’s sitting on the arm of his chair, looking dainty and gazing adoringly at him, while he smiles at her.

  Maybe he has shown her his boat, and from the expression on her face, she must have liked it very much. I shouldn’t care, I tell myself, but it’s all I can do not to push her off the arm of his chair.

  Aside from one searing look when I walk into the room, he mainly ignores my presence, concentrating his efforts on making his devotee laugh over and over again until the sound of her perfectly artful laugh starts to grate on my nerves.

  “Constance told me about her stroke,” I whisper to Blythe during dinner.

  She sighs. “It was scary, at first, but she’s much better now.”

  I nod. “I can imagine,” I say, “the scary part. Is she really better?”

  “The doctors say she is, and she does look much better than she did during... in the middle of it all. She is taking things a lot easier these days though.”

  After dinner, Nick has some emails to send and leaves immediately, Blythe goes upstairs with Constance, and I’m left to witness Jackson and Elaine’s flirting.

  I should leave them. From the pointed looks Elaine is sending my way, I know she wants me to, but some stubbornness makes me stay, a reluctance to leave them alone even though every word they exchange makes me more and more heartsick.

  “I can’t tell you how much I hate the fact that we’ll be leaving soon.” Elaine sighs. “I wish we could stay longer.”

  “Maybe you’ll come back.” Jackson suggests.

  “Oh, I would love that,” She breathes in that smoky voice. She sounds like a bitch in heat, I think in disgust, unable to resist the urge to roll my eyes.

  “What Olivia?” Jackson doesn’t miss the gesture, “Wouldn't you like to come back here?”

  I meet his eyes, braving the mocking challenge I find there. “I think I’ve had enough of small town living for now.”

  He shrugs.

  Elaine tugs on his arm and whispers something to him. I see him get up and go to the side table to pour a glass of amber colored liquid. I can’t help staring at him, the perfect body, and the easy and confident way he carried it. Maybe I was wrong to resist, maybe just once I ought to remind my body what it felt like to reach the heights of pleasure his body could give mine.

  Embarrassed at my carnal thoughts, I look away and my eyes meet Elaine’s. She’s staring at me, with a smirk on her face that tells me she knows exactly what I’m thinking. Her eyes are gleaming with a certain satisfaction, which I assume to mean that she sure she already has what she thinks I want.

  “Olivia.”

  “What?” I look up at Jackson, he’s half turned from the side table, looking at me questioningly.

  “I said would you like a drink?”

  “No,” I get up. “I’m going to go to bed, I’m suddenly very tired.”

  His eyebrow quirks, and his eyes say he doesn’t believe me.

  “Goodnight.” Elaine chirps pleasantly.

  “Goodnight.” I smile at them both, even though inside I have a silly urge to cry. “See you tomorrow.”

  Upstairs, I wash my face and change out of my dinner clothes. I have no desire to sleep, so I pick up my computer and start to edit a portrait of an actress I was commissioned to do before I came back to Halcyon. I pour all my consciousness into what I’m doing, trying to stop myself from thinking about Jackson and Elaine downstairs, alone, together.

  I don’t know how much time has passed by the time the door opens, an hour or maybe more. I look up and see Jackson framed in the doorway.

  “I thought you said you were tired.” He says.

  “I thought you would know enough to respect the privacy of a guest in your home,” I
retort.

  “Come on,” He laughs. “It’s not like you've got anything I haven’t seen before.” He walks into the room and stops by the bed, where I’m sitting with the computer on my lap. “That looks interesting.” He says.

  I don’t reply, instead I continue adding filters to the image to create a pop art effect.

  “Aren’t you going to reply?”

  “Are you going to start tormenting me again?”

  “Is that what I do?” he asks, coming to sit beside me on the bed. I stiffen as his closeness fills my senses. “What if I told you I was the one in torment?" He whispers against my neck, “from having you so close, within reach, from seeing your body respond even without me touching you.”

  I swallow, fixing my eyes on the image on my screen. “You used to date her didn’t you?” I say, changing the subject and taking his attention back to the face on my screen. I read too much about him in the news not to know the names and faces of every single woman with whom he was ever rumored to have an affair.

  He chuckles. “When did you start reading gossip magazines Olivia?”

  I don’t reply.

  He considers me silently for a moment. “Why do you want to know? Underneath all your indifference, are you jealous?”

  Yes, I am jealous. I hated every single person he was ever photographed with. I hated them almost as much as I loved him. I remove the laptop from my lap and get up, putting some distance between us as I move away from the bed. “I couldn’t care less,” I retort. “I was just trying to change the subject. Are you jealous of all the men I’ve been with in the last seven years?”

  He’s watching me like a hawk. “What if I said I was?” He says, “What if I said that I wanted to make you forget that you were ever with anyone else?”

  “I’d say you ought to have your head examined.”

  He laughs. “I should have my head examined if I can stand to be in the same room with you, and even want it, anticipate it.” He gets up and moves towards me, stalking, like a hunter to its prey. “Does it make you feel powerful, to know that you drew me back here, against my better judgment?”