by Amy Muscat
It had been two weeks and three days since Keller, and I had said the most-anticipated words in our relationship.
Two weeks since Lottie had left America, to go back to London.
Ten days since Ivy had come home from pre-k with a golden star.
Six days since Keller had been working non-stop.
Four days since Lottie got back from London.
Three days since I’d gotten food poisoning.
Two days since I’d missed my period.
One day since Keller and I had made love.
Sixteen hours of panicking about being pregnant.
Five hours since I’d dropped Ivy at pre-k.
Four hours since Keller and I had a massive fight.
Thirty minutes since I’d bought a pregnancy test.
Fifteen minutes since I’d gotten home.
Ten minutes since I’d sat on the couch and just stared at the box, scared shitless.
And one minute since I’d peed on a stick.
****
I was worrying my lip, chewing on it to the point of pain, but I just couldn’t seem to care nor take my eyes off the pregnancy test in my hands.
Today had just been one of them days where everything went to shit.
First I’d woken up feeling sick again, before rushing to the toilet and proceeded to empty everything I’d eaten for dinner the previous night. Then after I’d dragged myself from the bathroom floor, I’d gotten Ivy ready and taken her to school. When I’d gotten back, home Keller had surprised me by asking for Ivy and I to move in with him. I stood there in a state of shock from the unexpected question. Keller had smiled at me gently and had taken my shock as a good sign.
And in a way it was- I’d love for all three of us to move in together and be a family, but I thought it was too soon. And I didn’t want to leave Lottie after everything she’d ever done for me. For Ivy. For us.
But I knew if I was being one hundred percent truthful with myself- I’d admit that I was scared.
Keller and I hadn’t been together for very long, and I was scared that when/if we moved in together, would we be able to handle everything?
I know Keller was basically living here, but this was my home. The one I shared with Lottie, who helped with everything. She helped with the bills and just general stuff; like taking Ivy to school when I was too tired or the fact that when I had worked at the club she would watch her for me. It was also the fact that Ivy was so used to having ‘auntie Lottie’ there every day, and how things were. Would it fuck with her head when she wouldn’t have her routine?
And when I’d told him this, my heart dropped-along with his face.
When he’d asked why, I’d stuttered out my answer. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings but... I was scared of the unknown. The unknown being the fact that I might be pregnant, and I didn’t know how to feel about that. I didn’t know how Keller was going to feel about it. If I was being completely honest, I was scared of how he was going to react about this news. Would he think I’d gotten pregnant to trap him? Again? Would he hate the news? Love it? I didn’t know, and it was playing on my mind and made me sick with worry.
I mean for God’s sake I’m taking the pill!
I know it doesn’t always work but fuck me... If I was pregnant, Keller had some strong fucking sperm going on down there.
“That’s bullshit, Pey,” he’d said, his voice rising slightly. “That is the most-pathetic excuse I’ve ever heard. You’re scared that Ivy won’t adjust and that Lottie is going to be lost living on her own? Lottie’s a grown ass woman, I’m sure she’s capable of living on her own- hell Peyton! If she’s not I’m sure she can move next door, she could make that work, couldn’t she? She has her daddy’s money to look after her!” He spat nastily, his eyes burning with a certain fire that I hadn’t seen since the night in the club when I’d given him a VIP dance, and we had our first confrontation.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? Don’t be mean to Lottie, she’s done nothing wrong, Keller,” I spat back at him. I don’t understand why he was reacting like this; it made no sense. I’d responded how any person in my situation would- well I thought so.
Nevertheless, I was both hurt and shocked that he was speaking to me like this; totally unlike Keller.
“I’m sorry; I shouldn’t have said that about Lottie, she hasn’t done anything wrong. I- I’m...” He blew out a frustrated breath and ran his hands through his hair and started pacing back and forth.
My heart squeezed for the stress that was gracing his face. No matter how he’d spoken to me, I couldn’t just let him stew about it- there was obviously something on his mind- other than me saying ‘no’ to his proposal.
Reaching my hand out and placing it on his bicep, stopping him in his tracks.
“Keller, please tell me what’s wrong? You’re worrying me,” I told him gently, silently imploring him with my eyes to tell me what was wrong.
“Nothing, Peyton. Don’t worry,” he said taking my hand away from his arm. Letting it drop he turned away from me and walked back over to the bed where he picked up his cell, keys, and his wallet.
“I’m off to work, I’ll see you later Pey,” he said and proceeded to walk out of my bedroom. A second later I heard the front door slam shut with a bang.
****
I snapped out of my thoughts when I heard the sounds of both, my phone alarm and Keller’s voice shouting out to me.
Startled, I dropped the test before picking it up and without looking at it, I shoved it in my purse. “Coming,” I shouted back, panicked.
What was he doing here? He’s not meant to finish at work for another five hours.
Maybe he was here to apologize to me, I silently mused.
I walked out of the bathroom, a flustered mess when I rounded the corner and spotted a very pissed of Keller.
Great. Maybe he wasn’t here to apologize, and was here to fight with me some more.
Asshole.
“Why aren’t you at work?” I asked him, frowning at his pacing form.
“I have to tell you something, and I don’t know how to tell you, or how you’re going to take it,” He said, turning to face me.
Oh God.
Has he cheated on me? Did he not want to be with me anymore?
Is he ill? Is... Ohmygod! Maybe he was going back into the army?
Is that why he’d been acting funny? Was he leaving me- us?
“I- I’m...” He blew out a heavy breath.
“Keller you’re scaring me. What’s wrong?”
He kept pacing back and forth, running his hands over his face and through his hair, gripping it at the edges and pulling, muttering something that suspiciously sounded like ‘stupid idiot.’
“KELLER!” I shouted at him my voice sounding as panicked as I was feeling.
“The reason I’ve been working so hard and longer hours is because-”
“Did- have you been cheating on me?” I whimpered out. It would break me if he said that. Fucking destroy me. I’m 99.9% sure that my heart would explode into tiny little pieces that could never be put together again. Bastard, how fucking dare he-
“NO!”
“No, baby. I didn’t cheat on you- would never cheat on you. How could you think that?” He looked devastated; his handsome face drawn up and tight. His eyes clouded with hurt, and I watched as his whole body sagged, with what looked like defeat.
“What else am I meant to think Keller? You looked stressed as fuck and guilty as sin. You snapped at me earlier over something that- to me, was so trivial. You really hurt me when you said the things you did and the actions you took to enforce it.” A sob broke through my trembling lips.
“No. Don’t cry, baby. Please don’t cry- I hate to see you cry, you know that. It breaks my heart knowing that I’m the one that has made you shed these tears.” He walked over to me and hesitantly put his arm around the bottom of my back and lifted his hand and softly wiped away wetness on my cheeks.
“I’m sor
Rubbing his palms up and down my arms he sighed, and then blurted out the words that I’d been hoping and also dreading to hear.
“The reason I’ve been working so much, having late nights is because, me and the guys have been searching for the person who sent ‘our’ letters to each other. And then yesterday we finally found the mailman; Mr. Bell, you remember him?”
I nodded my answer, but sat there silently waiting for whatever he was going to say.
“Well, when I spoke to him, he said he didn’t know what I was talking about, I called him out on his lie. I mean, how else did the letters- that we never sent- come and go? But he was adamant that he knew nothing about it. So I tracked him down again, and when I turned up at his house this morning, I confronted him. He threatened me, saying that he would call the cops,” he paused to take a breath.
“Did he call them,” I asked him concerned, with my hand over my mouth.
He shook his head no and said, “I just laughed in his face and told him to do it that I’d happily speak to them and tell them what he’d done. When he paled and tried to stutter his way out of the discussion, I reminded him that it was illegal for someone to steal another’s mail. I think he actually shit himself when I told him that. Then he sat down and told me how it had all come about.”
“I’m listening, go on.”
“He told me how he had been gambling his money away and he was up to his eyeballs in debt and that he was desperate for money. Then out of the blue someone had come up to him and propositioned him. Telling him that if he took the letters that you’d wrote and what I had written then they would give him five grand for the first time and then after that every letter that was sent he’d get two hundred bucks. So him being in the shitter and on the brink of losing his house, he agreed.” He had been slowly getting tenser and tenser, his muscles clenching until he was ridged. He looked like he didn’t want to tell me the next part.
“Tell me Keller, I need to know. Who was it?” My voice strained and my body the same as his- tight as a violins bow.
“Sandra. It was fucking Sandra,” he confessed with disgust.
Gasping, I jerked back away from him; my whole body vibrated with anger and shock.
No.
No, no no no....
It can’t be... Sandra?
“No...” I breathed. “How-I-I... that must be wrong. I knew she never liked me... why would she...” I left the question hanging in the air.
I just couldn’t believe it.
“I don’t know baby,” Keller said breaking me from my thoughts and disbelieve.
I looked up and saw the shock, horror and the devastation on his face. “I need to know why, Peyton. I need to know why she would fuck up our lives like that. Did my dad know, and not tell me?” He asked the questions in rapid fire.
“Ohmygod, Keller.” I gasped, my mouth forming an ‘O’ as a thought passed my mind.
“What?”
“She had obviously read them, the letters, she knows what we used to call her, what we still call her. She purposely stopped you knowing about Ivy,” my eyes watered, and I lost the control of my tear ducks and they started pouring down my cheeks.
Lifting his hand and wiping away the dampness he said, “Pey, you already knew that whoever took the letters had probably read them, why the shock?” His brows were drawn together as he asked this.
“I know that, but I just never really thought about it, to be honest with you. They were private, some intimate. I think my main focus - when I figured out it wasn’t you- was on the fact that someone had fucked with our lives. Not that they had more than likely read them, you know?”
“Yeah, baby, I get what you mean,” he said nodding again.
“What are we gonna do, Keller?” I asked him.
“We're going to go ‘round there and confront the bitch; that’s what we're going to do. I mean, how fucking dare she? What were her reasons? I just don't understand the logic. What did she get outta this? Pleasure? Happiness over what? Our miserableness? Fucking stupid cunt!” He fumed.
I gawked.
I’d never heard Keller use that word- he’d always said that it was a nasty horrible word that people just chuck out there. So for him to be using it now, he must be really pissed. And rightfully so.
Sandra had been in his life for almost ten years now and for five of them, she had been lying to him. Albeit about four of those years he never really liked her or got along with her, but that’s not the point. She was his father’s wife, his step-mom- a mother figure for all intents and purposes.
And she had wronged him. Badly.
Poor Keller.
“What are we gonna do Keller?” I asked him, hoping desperately that he had the answers, ‘cause my brain was just a big clusterfuck at the moment.
“We're going ‘round there right now. I've called my dad and asked him if he and Sandra could come home right away and I'd meet them there ASAP. Call Lottie and ask her if she could pick Ivy up from pre-k, we might be there for a while, and I don't want Ivy being there and hearing anything,” he replied back. Walking out the living room, Keller was back in two seconds with my jacket and shoes.
As quickly as I could I throw my Converse on and my leather jacket. I picked up my bag and cell from the table where I had left them and then we were off.
Off to finally, find the answers that had destroyed me, no both of us five years ago.
TWENTY-TWO
I had gotten off the phone with Lottie just a few minutes ago.
When I'd called her and explained why she had to get Ivy for me, she had gasped. Then she had sat in silence for about a minute taking in everything I had told her. And then, her anger had exploded through the line as she ranted and raved. Her spiel both amused me and humbled me. It wasn't really the time to be laughing or anything. But Lottie just had this thing about her that when she was going off on someone, cursing up a storm, that it just made you laugh. When she was like this, her accent became more pronounced. I’d giggled a little when she had called her a ‘stupid fucking slut’, and said, ‘that the bitch should watch her back.' But it also warmed my heart to know that she cared about me enough to blow up.
She had just called me back and told me that she had picked Ivy up. And that she had brought her back to work with her, as she had deadlines to meet with the new book releases they were setting up.
I'd told her that, that was fine, thanked her and that I'd see her later.
We were just pulling onto Rob's street, and I turned my head and saw Keller's hands clutching the steering wheel.
"What..." I trailed off as I followed his eyes and saw Sandra's new-black Mercedes sitting in the driveway along with Rob's silver BMW. "Oh... Well, here we go."
"Yeah, here we fucking go." He said his voice ticking with hate.
At this moment in time Keller looked like the epitome of an alpha male; strong, angry, menacing and hot.
His jaw was ticking; his lips smashed together, his whole body taut.
I felt a little sorry for Sandra at the moment. Okay, maybe not.
As Keller’s Range Rover pulled up behind Rob's BMW, he turned the car off and started taking big deep breaths.
“Okay Kel, we can’t go in there guns blazing. We have to find out the whys, and that's not gonna happen if we walk in there shouting and screaming at her, okay?”
Nodding he looked over at me, and I saw the pain in his eyes as he asked me the question that was obviously playing on his mind.
“Do... Do you think that my dad knew, Peyton? Do you, in your heart of hearts, think that my dad knew and never told me?” He asked and gripped my hand tightly; it was almost painful.
“No. No, I don't Keller. Your dad loves you. And he worships the ground Ivy walks on, you know that.” I told him bringing my hand that he wasn't holding up and caressed his cheek. Taking a finger I brought it up to where the lines on his forehead were visible, smoothing them out.
“Okay,” he breathed out, before he bent forward and gently kissed my lips, nipping them as he pulled away.
“Let’s do this baby,” I said with a squeeze of his hand.
Repeating my statement, he jumped out of his car and quickly moved around to open my door.
Before we got to the door it opened and Rob's body filled it, face confused.
“Keller what's the matter? You called me and told me to hurry home and to get Sandra home too, is everything okay? Is Ivy alright?” Rob rushed out the door and latching his hands onto Keller’s shoulders, looking at his son with worry. Concern was written all over his face.
I could see and I could feel in my heart, body and soul that Rob knew nothing about the letters and Sandra's deceit.
Rob looked at his son the same way as he looked at Ivy; unconditional love.
The love only a parent can feel and experience.
It was the way I looked at Ivy. The way I saw Keller look at Ivy.
“Let’s go in dad, I- we need to talk to you and Sandra, about something,” Keller said to his dad, giving him a small hug before pulling back. Without looking he grabbed my hands and pulled us into the house.
As Rob shut the door behind us, I pulled my hand out of Keller's and moved to give Rob a hug and place a kiss on his cheek.
“You wanna tell me what is going on, Pey?” Rob whispered in my ear.
“You'll find out in a minute,” I said to him, just as Keller asked him where Sandra was.
“In the kitchen getting drinks, I heard you pull up and asked her to go get the drinks for us,” Rob told him, still looking confused. He had the same worry lines lining his forehead as Keller did.
They really were a lot alike.
Just then Sandra came walking around the corner, sans drinks, looking her normal poised, prim, stuck-up self. With her blond hair hanging down, sitting on her bony shoulders in small waves. Her white dress- which I’m sure cost more than one term at Ivy’s school, if not more- and a pair of gold sandals on her feet. Stepford wife, that was the best way to explain what she looked like and how she carried herself.
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