They were what marked the grave of my son.
I fell to the ground with a wail as each of the million pieces of my heart let loose their agony in a simultaneous release, rendering me helpless to the waves of grief that battered upon my soul.
My fingers raked at the grass, gripping hard and trying to ground me. Trying to hold myself in place—to stop myself from floating away. I crawled over and placed my hand on the cold marble of the tiny angel. I bent toward it and rested my forehead against the top of his petite head, baptising him with my tears.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, as I moved to kneel at his side.
They were words I owed him, Emmanuel, a thousand times over. Words I owed Alyssa and Phoebe.
“I’ll tell them too,” I promised. “I swear to you, I’ll tell them until they know how fucking sorry I am.”
Even though I’d never met him, had never even dreamed he’d existed, the agony of having lost my child was unbearable. I had no doubt that my pain was only a fraction of what Alyssa would have suffered.
Had suffered.
Alone.
A sob ripped from me and I fell to the ground again.
“I’m so, so fucking sorry, Lys,” I murmured, wishing the words would find their way to her ears.
They will. I’ll tell her. I’ll make her see how truly sorry I am. Somehow.
My gaze lifted back up to the stone angel. But it won’t fix this.
All the physical torture in the world would be preferable to the pain ravaging my soul. I would have faced a hundred of Josh’s beatings to avoid the pain. A thousand. Being burned alive at the stake would have been preferable to the fire that consumed my lungs and left me unable to breathe around the ashes in my throat.
Anything would have been preferable to the absolute agony that twisted inside my stomach as I looked at my son’s tombstone. That one line from Phoebe’s birth certificate, “Siblings: Emmanuel Pollux Reede Dawson 11th June (Dec’d),” would be burned into my brain forever.
CHAPTER TWENTY: HOMECOMING
I HAD NO way of knowing exactly how long I’d sat beside Emmanuel’s grave. All I knew was that it had been midmorning when I’d arrived, and it was almost dark again when I heard footsteps behind me. By then, I was practically curled around the cool marble of the headstone, taking comfort from the pain of the sharp edges digging into my body. It drew my attention away from the fog that had taken residence in my brain.
Raising my head, I glanced up to see who had arrived. The outline was unfamiliar. Although the guy was tall and muscled, it wasn’t Josh. This guy was a little bit shorter and a little less bulky, but not by much. His jet-black hair was short and spiked. When my eyes adjusted to the low light, I could see that it was the fucker from Queensland Raceway, Flynn. The fucking arsehole who’d claimed paternity of my daughter, and no doubt my son too.
A small voice inside my head, the one I usually drowned in alcohol, reminded me that he’d claimed that place only because I hadn’t. Because I wouldn’t answer the phone when Alyssa called. Because I’d been so damn scared that she would drag me back into a suburban life—where I would have to settle for a dead-end job rather than doing something I loved—that I didn’t even consider she might have her own shit going on.
Another sob escaped my lips. I didn’t know how many that was; I’d lost count long ago.
My tears were long since dried though. Not because I didn’t want to cry or anything like that but because there were just no more tears left inside me. All that remained was an empty husk filled with bitter remorse and empty regret. I wanted nothing more than to fill the void with half a bottle of whatever sleeping pills I could lay my hands on and a bottle of whiskey.
If I could have, I would’ve just lain on the spot and let the earth fucking swallow me. I knew I couldn’t though, and the reasons were multiple and complex. First and foremost was the fucker still staring at me through eyes narrowed into thin slits.
When I met his gaze his face brightened just a little. “I hoped I might find you here.”
I grunted at him, but didn’t move to stand. I wasn’t sure if I even could. Instead, I pulled myself into a seated position and rested my head against the side of the headstone. Flynn sat next to me and passed me a beer. I debated whether it was too fucking morbid to be sucking back on a beer in the middle of a cemetery at twilight, but decided I fucking needed it too much to care. I snatched it from his hand before popping it open and sliding the bottle cap into my pocket. I may have been an arse to even consider drinking at the side of Emmanuel’s grave, but I wasn’t going to desecrate it with litter on top of that.
“I’m Flynn, by the way.” The fucker held his hand out for me to shake.
I didn’t take it. “Declan.”
“Yeah, I know.” He fucking smiled. How the fucker could smile when my world had just crashed into tiny fucking pieces was beyond me. He seemed to understand my thoughts because in my peripheral vision, I saw his face flick to Emmanuel’s tombstone before returning to my direction.
“Sorry about the fucked-up way you had to find out about this. I just . . .” He sighed and then brushed his hands through his hair. “I knew that if it was left to Alyssa you might not have found out the whole story for a while longer. And I thought it’d be better for her if you knew.”
“You left me the birth certificate.” I wished my voice would be something other than flat and lifeless. It held no emotion, not even anger or sorrow. I couldn’t even ask it as a question. The words came out as a bland, monotonous statement. My gaze remained focused on the grass in front of me.
He nodded. “I was in Sydney yesterday to meet Alyssa. I flew down a little earlier, so I paid your house a quick visit.”
I glanced over at him.
“She told me about the near misses you two had on the flight back. She managed to get herself bumped to first class just because she didn’t want to talk to you.”
I nodded. Although I should have been surprised, or shocked, or angry, or well, something, it all just seemed too much to manage. Anything beyond hollow, empty, and filled with agony was too much.
“She will speak to you again, man, she’s just . . . afraid.”
She was afraid of me. Again, I supposed I should have felt something about that revelation, but I didn’t. I closed my eyes and exhaled everything that was left in me; it wasn’t a lot. I went to ask a question, but once more it left me as a hard, uncaring statement. “She really suffered.”
I opened my eyes again to see his reaction. His eyes flicked back to the tombstone again. He nodded. “I think you might be beginning to see just how much. The most fucked up thing is she never said a bad thing about you. In the almost four fucking years that I’ve known her, she has never once said anything negative about you. She’s always made excuses for you, man. Even after what happened in London, she tried to justify the arsehole things you did.”
“What happened?” I touched the horses on the tombstone. Castor and Pollux. I vaguely wondered what the significance was supposed to be. Considering Emmanuel’s middle name, there had to be one.
He shook his head. “Sorry, that is Alyssa’s story to tell. I just wanted you to get your arse up here so she could tell it.”
I buried my head in my hands. “If she ever talks to me again.”
“I told you, she will . . . eventually.”
“Why the fuck do you even care?” I could feel some semblance of emotion filtering back into my body. That emotion was anger—which probably wasn’t a good emotion to take out on somebody who could very likely beat me to a pulp. It couldn’t hurt more than the gaping wound torn into my heart though.
“I care because I care about Alyssa. I care about Phoebe. They’ve been a pretty fucking permanent feature in my life for the last few years, and she’s my best friend. I hate that this is fucking hurting her. That you are hurting her. The sooner you two figure this shit out, the sooner she can move on.”
I shook my head, but I didn’t know w
hat I was denying. I knew what he said was the truth. Hearing him use the words that once belonged to me hurt though—there was a time when I’d been Alyssa’s best friend. Then I’d broken her heart. Then she’d moved on. Or so I’d thought. And now, she really did want to move on but needed to sort shit out with me first.
“Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt you know,” he said as he sucked back deeply on his beer.
“How did you even know I was here?”
He laughed. “Browns Plains isn’t exactly known for its prevalence of hundred-thousand-dollar Monaros, especially ones with Sinclair Racing on the back.”
“But why—”
He cut me off and stood up. “My house is about fifteen minutes that way”—he pointed to the left—“Alyssa lives that way”—he pointed to the right—“I was driving past and saw the car. I figured it would be you. At least, I hoped it would be.”
“You live here?”
“Sure. I moved here from Chermside to be closer to Alyssa after the twins were born. To help her out, you know. It’s what friends do. They’re there for each other. They answer calls and they don’t run away.”
Was the fucker trying to infuriate me? What was his fucking game? Did he want me to fucking attack him so that he could play the innocent card with Alyssa? I stood up and got in his face. Apparently my emptiness had been completely filled with stupidity and rage. “You just want to fucking get in her pants don’t you, fucker!”
He rolled his eyes at me but didn’t react in any other way. “First, if I wanted to get in anyone’s pants, they’d be yours and not Alyssa’s.”
My mouth fell open.
Before I could think of a response to that, he continued, “Second, I would’ve had my chance at her many times if I really wanted it. Third, and most important, as much as it might surprise you to learn this, there are people in the world who want to do things for other people just because they fucking care. They care about other people and not only themselves.”
I didn’t want to listen to him. All I wanted to do was fucking smash his smug fucking face into the ground. I didn’t want to hear the truths that were coming from his mouth. Instead, I said, “Just fuck off and leave me alone.”
He shrugged. “I don’t really give a shit about you, man. It’s Alyssa I care about. Right now, she needs you to know about this. To deal with it. That’s the only reason you’re here. If you fucking hurt her again—”
“Yeah, yeah, I fucking know. Like I haven’t heard it before.” I walked straight past him, shoulder checking him on the way to my car.
I’d just turned the key in the ignition when he walked slowly out through the gates of the cemetery. He folded his arms and narrowed his eyes in what was clearly supposed to be a threatening manoeuvre. His thoughts were clear. If you hurt Alyssa, I will hurt you. Well, he could get in fucking line.
Instead of making me afraid, the sight pissed me off. Every fucking person acted like I wanted to hurt her. I revved the engine in defiance. Fucker.
Throwing the car into reverse, I kept my eyes trained on him as I pulled out of the park, only stopping when I was less than half a metre in front of him. Then I deliberately dropped the clutch and sent the wheels spinning. I fishtailed up the street and flipped up my middle finger at him. As I drove, I had no destination in mind. I just needed to be moving again. Now that the loss and emptiness had burned into anger, I needed an outlet for the burn. It may have been completely irrational, but it was potent enough that I could explode at any fucking second.
For a while, I drove aimlessly. Then I saw a pub and my stomach snarled at me. Aside from the coffee I’d had on the road, and the airline food on the plane, I’d had nothing to eat for two days. Hoping the food inside would be decent, and not a pile of greasy crap, I pulled into a parking spot. For a moment, I wondered whether I would have been better off just having a liquid dinner. If nothing else, it would dull the agony. I couldn’t though—I needed to think straight as I worked out my next step. I needed to see Alyssa, but I didn’t even know where she lived aside from the vague direction Flynn had offered. For half a second, I debated swinging back to the cemetery to beg him to give me her address, but I didn’t want to owe the fucker any more than I already did.
I slipped my sunnies and hat on before I slid from the car. In that moment, I didn’t care how much of a tosser I might have looked wearing sunglasses at night, not if it stopped even one person from approaching me. I was beyond my capacity to deal with people. Agony and rage burned through my veins like fire, searing me and giving me the feeling of superhuman strength.
When I entered the pub, I headed straight to the counter and ordered the first halfway healthy thing on the menu. Then I headed to a secluded corner to wait for my meal. Sitting at the table, I slumped my head forward against the hard surface and tried not to think about or feel anything.
“Oh my God! Look who fucking decided to slum it with the little people.” I heard the voice shout from across the bar and my heart sank. I didn’t recognise the owner, but whoever it was I just fucking hoped that they weren’t talking about me, even though I was almost certain they were.
“It’s fucking Declan Reede!”
Fucking hell. The voice was closer.
“Dec! It’s me, Blake!”
I kept my head down.
“Blake Cooper? We were at school together.”
Without waiting to be invited, he sat in the seat across from me at the table. I raised my head and nodded to acknowledge his presence. Knowing I’d been recognised anyway, I slipped off my sunglasses. What else could I do? Tell him to fuck off? As tempting as it was, I didn’t really want to establish those words as my standard greeting.
“So, what are you doing back here?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Just visiting.”
“You catching up with anyone while you’re here?”
I shrugged again before glancing in the direction of the kitchen, wishing my food would make an appearance already. It couldn’t be that hard to make a steak sandwich with the lot, could it?
“So, we all know what you’ve been doing since you left school, talk of the fucking town and all that.”
It took a mammoth effort, but I managed to resist rolling my eyes.
He seemed to be getting frustrated with my nonverbal communication. “Yeah, there’s been lots of stuff happen here since you left.”
Leaning back on my chair, I crossed my arms and stared wordlessly at him.
“I got married.”
I tried to feign interest.
“To Darcy Kinsley. Remember her? Blonde with a smoking hot body.”
That little titbit piqued my interest. “How long ago was that?”
He fished a gaudy, tarnished bronze ring from his pants pocket and twisted it in his hands. “We’ve been happily married for two years now.”
I refrained from raising my eyebrow and asking why, if they were so fucking happy, he was alone in a pub with his ring in his pocket rather than on his finger, and she’d been out screwing me on New Year’s Eve not even a year ago.
“Did you hear Alyssa got herself knocked up after you left?”
I set my jaw and tried to warn him silently that he did not want to continue on that path. Not if he wanted to keep his fucking face intact. He was not big and muscled like Josh or Flynn. He was exactly the right size for me to pummel into fucking shit. And if he said one more fucking word about Alyssa . . .
“Yeah, I mean after you left, I kinda thought she was fair game and asked her out.”
I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose with one hand. The other was clenching in and out of a fist under the table. The force I exerted on my knuckles echoed up my arm into the strained muscles around my ribs.
“She always refused and I realised why pretty quickly when she started getting fat.”
My hand was no longer pinching the bridge of my nose. At his words, both my hands were under the table clenched into tight fists and my whole body coiled
as I tried to stop myself from leaping across the table at him.
“And when it was obvious she was pregnant, I stopped chasing her and went for Darcy. No one wants sloppy seconds after all.”
Blake started to laugh at his own joke but his face fell as I tipped the table between us over with a primal cry on my lips. His drink and the rest of the contents went flying and seconds later, the sound of smashing glass echoed around us. Without stopping, or slowing at all, I launched myself at his throat with one hand. The other rounded quickly and connected with his cheek. He backed away almost as fast as I pushed forward, but after a handful of steps found himself trapped between me and the wall.
“If I ever hear about you saying one more thing against Alyssa, I will fucking hunt you down and gut you.” I shoved him against the wall before pinning him in place with the hand around his neck. “And if I were you, I’d stop my wife from going to masked balls. You never know who might bang into her.” I made sure my voice was dripping with innuendo. With one final shove, I pushed away from him and left the pub. The kitchen staff could keep my fucking sandwich.
I hadn’t heard Blake following me until he grabbed my shoulder when I was near my car. He pulled me around roughly and opened his mouth to speak. The anger that was simmering in me burned into a raging fire with his touch and the memory of his words. I turned and swung at him, knocking him to the ground. Then I fell over him, pinning him beneath me and pouring my anger at the world and at myself into him. My fists rained down on him over and over, pounding into him again and again, even as he lay on the ground trying to shield himself with his arms. I kept going until three guys came out of the pub and forcibly pulled me off of him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: CASTOR AND POLLUX
IT WAS ONLY when I climbed into the car that sense flooded back into me. My whole body shook with tremors of rage and regret, each new spasm like twisting a knife in my already aching side. My knuckles were bloodied and sore. The cut on my arm felt like I’d been torn open all over again.
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