Текст книги "Facade"

Автор книги: Nyrae Dawn

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

“She got pregnant when I turned sixteen. Just some girl I met. Tina. Another fucked-up decision by me.” I hear my voice, but it’s like I’m not controlling it. It feels like someone else is speaking my truth.

“Who? What are you talking about?”

“I didn’t know until she was about to have him. I was sixteen fucking years old and she comes to me nine months pregnant and says he’s mine.”

“Oh God…”

“He was always mine… I knew just by looking at him. And then she fucking gave him to me.” My eyes are still forward. I don’t move. Don’t look at her. I’m not even sure I’m here. Nothing but words. Words I’ve never told anyone. “Angel had to save me like she always did. When we were kids, she took beatings for me. Then she took me to live with her. And then she took care of my son. Just like Tina gave him to me, I fucking gave custody of my son to my sister. Who does that?”

“Adrian. No. I didn’t know! But you were there. You didn’t leave him. You tried to do what was best for him.” She’s sobbing so hard it’s difficult to make out what she’s saying.

“I let him die.” Fire laces my words. It all comes back to me. Her coming here to find me. Knowing who I was. Knowing what happened. Lying. Making me love her. Knowing what I lost. “Your dad killed him.”

I push away from her and to my feet. “I let my little boy die! The only fucking person in the world to ever look at me and not see all the things I did wrong. All he ever, ever wanted was love from me!”

My hands fly out as I shove the few things off my dresser, then knock it to the ground. Delaney jumps back.

“Don’t. Adrian. Let me help you. I’m so sorry. Let’s just—”

“Fucking help me!” I kick over the bedside table. The lamp crashes to the floor, but somehow the light doesn’t go out.

I rip the blankets from the bed. Throw the pillow. And grab his shirt. His little shirt that belonged on his two-year-old body. I clutch it to my chest.

And cry. Fucking cry. Wail. Scream.

“I killed him. I let him die. I want him back. I just want him back.”

Delaney tries to come toward me. “Get out,” I say, and then I’m in a ball on the floor holding Ash’s shirt.

“Adrian. I’m sorry, so, so sorry.”

I can’t look at her. I’m seeing his smile. Still crying. So many tears. I haven’t cried since the day I let him die and now I can’t stop it. Her dad did it. He was laughing and drunk and screwing around with some woman as he took a corner and killed my son. My son. My boy, Ashton.

* * *

“Adrian… you all right, man?” Colt’s voice.

The light’s gone out now. I have no idea how long I’ve been lying here. I lift my head. Colt is crouched next to me. The light from the hallway shines down on Cheyenne, who’s waiting there.

“You okay? Delaney called us.”

“Her dad killed my son,” tumbles out.

Cheyenne gasps, then covers her mouth.

“Fuck,” Colt curses. “Son?”

I see the pity in his eyes and I fucking hate it.

“Come on, man. Let’s go. Come with us. We’ll figure this out.” He grabs my arm and tries to help me up, but I jerk away and sit up, still clutching Ash’s shirt.

“I gotta get the fuck out of here.” As soon as I’m on my feet, Colt is too.

“Then I’ll go with you. We’ll take off. However long you want. Chey doesn’t care, right, baby?”

“No,” she says. “Whatever you guys need, do it.”

I’ve said before how real he is, how real they both are, but I didn’t realize how much until this second. He would leave his girl to take off with me if I need it. She would let him. “You’re a good guy, man. Real. Stay with your girl. You need each other. Don’t worry about me.” I just want out. I need to breathe and get away from everyone so I can try and lose myself again. It hurts too fucking much to get close.

I walk away from him. “Don’t do this. Don’t fucking bail like this, Adrian,” he says, but I know he won’t try to stop me. Colt doesn’t work that way.

“Please?” Cheyenne reaches for me as I hit the hallway. She grabs my arm, tears in her eyes. “I wouldn’t have made it through Colt’s accident without you.”

“Now you have him, so you don’t need me.” I kiss her forehead and walk out. Walk away to get lost again, Ash’s shirt still tight in my grip.

Chapter Twenty-Two

~Delaney~

His son, his son, his son. How could Ashton have been his son? But then… he’d been sixteen when Ashton was born. He’d given legal custody to Angel. According to the law, she was his. It’s not like Mom talked about it. Or that Maddox or I had gone to court with Dad—or if they would have even mentioned something like that there.

His son. My father killed his son. Adrian saw his little boy die. And he has the guilt of thinking he should have been able to protect him like he thought he should his mom.

I jump out of my bed and hardly make it to the bathroom before I’m vomiting. Everything purges out of my stomach until it cramps. Until I’m gagging and dry-heaving and there’s nothing left in me.

Flushing the toilet, I lie right there on the cold bathroom floor. Somehow I still have tears left and I let them fall. Couldn’t stop them if I wanted to and the whole time I see Adrian.

His son, his son, his son.

* * *

It’s been two days and I haven’t left the house. Work calls, but I don’t answer. I can hardly make myself leave the bed. My brother hasn’t come home. I’ve called him a million times, but he doesn’t pick up. He’s never stayed gone like this before. Never just left me like he did. Maddox always answers when I call. He’s always there when I need him.

But now he’s not…

Just like Adrian… he’s gone.

* * *

“Cheyenne?” I ask when she answers the phone one day later. “Hi… it’s Laney. Delaney.” She called me Laney when we hung out at her apartment that night, but I don’t know if she’ll want to anymore.

“I know who it is.” Her voice is clipped. “Well, I thought I knew who you were. I definitely didn’t know you were tied to Adrian’s past somehow. Definitely didn’t know you’d wreck him like you did.”

I know I deserve the anger in her voice. I deserve more than that and I’m glad she’s doing it. Glad Adrian has her.

There’s a part of me that wants to cry, but God, I’m so tired of crying, of folding, but I don’t know if I can do anything else.

“Hurting Adrian is the last thing I wanted. I know it doesn’t seem that way, but it’s true. I love him.”

She sighs on the other end of the phone. “What happened? I’ve… I’ve never seen him like that. It’s like he was gone. His eyes were empty. Adrian doesn’t say much, but you can always tell he has so much going on inside him.”

I play those words over and over in my head. Let them echo and penetrate each layer, no matter how much it hurts. “I know…” I curl up in the corner of my bed, like it will somehow protect me from the truth. “I did that. I know it, and my intentions don’t matter. I just wanted… I wanted to try and find a way we could all make it out of this without so much pain. But I took too long to tell him. How is he?”

“I don’t know. He’s gone. What do you expect? It’s not like Adrian’s going to tell us. We didn’t even know… he really had a son?”

My mouth opens and I start to talk. I tell her about my family, my dad and what he did. About my mom. Even about seeing Angel. I admit that I came here to find him and that I basically lied… but then I tell her how much I love him. And how he makes me feel and how incredible he is. When I stop, she’s crying.

“We never knew… How could he not have told Colt at least?”

Then we cry together. Cry for the broken man we both care about. For the demons he lets haunt him. And for the little boy we’ll never meet, who would have grown up to be just as special as Adrian.

* * *

I sit outside my mom’s apartment complex. It’s been a week since Adrian left. Since I’ve seen my brother, who’s texted me a couple times to let me know he’s okay.

I didn’t tell him I was coming here because I know he would come for me. And as much as I want him by my side before I step into that apartment, I have to do it on my own. It’s not Maddox’s job to protect me. It’s not his job to follow me, regardless of whether he believes in what I’m doing or not.

It’s time I do something by myself.

It’s time I really face her, and talk to her, because just like it’s not Maddox’s job to protect me, it’s not my job to take care of her. To be her punching bag. I accept her anger and hate of my father and let her make it about me.

If I could look Adrian in the eyes and tell him about my father, I can do this. If I can survive the pain in his eyes, I can do anything, which is why I don’t even let my legs shake as I walk up the stairs. I don’t stress enough to let my heart go rapid.

And I hope she’s okay. God, I hope she is, but I can’t make it my responsibility to make her that way. We all deal with our pain in a different way, I realize. Maddox is broken because he takes the blame for Dad. Thinks he should have done something. I want to fix everything. I take responsibility for Mom’s anger at me. I tried to make it better for all for us when no one, no one can fix anything for anyone else.

And Adrian. My heart jumps at the thought of him. He puts more blame on himself than all of us combined. For Ashton. For leaving his sister and not stopping his father. He’s lived with this misplaced responsibility since he was a kid. It’s been eating him alive ever since.

I grab the railing and close my eyes, willing the tears to stay back. I miss him. I miss him so much that I had to force myself to leave the bed, but I have to do this.

After taking a couple deep breaths, I finish the walk to Mom’s apartment. I raise my hand and knock on the door.

“Who is it?” she calls, but I don’t answer. Instead I try the handle, which is unlocked, so I open the door.

“It’s Laney,” I say as I close it behind me.

“I wondered how long it would take before you came to check on me.” She’s sitting on the small love seat. The TV’s off and she’s crocheting. It’s so normal that you’d never know she tried to kill herself a month ago. That she’s fine and then suddenly she’s not. You’d never know she hates me.

“I’m here now.” Walking over to the chair across from her, I sit down.

“I’m all medicated up.” Mom picks up a pill bottle and shakes it. “A dose of happiness once a day. Everything’s better now. You don’t have to try and fix me.”

Her words sting.

“Where’s your brother?” she asks.

I look at the hooks in her lap, a memory floating to the surface. “Remember when I was little and you tried to teach me to crochet? I was horrible. I never could get it, but I still have the afghan we worked on together.”

She sighs and smiles a little. “I remember. That was when everything was good. Before your father started chasing women and you started chasing him.”

And there’s the slap I’ve been waiting for. “I didn’t chase him. He’s my dad and I was a child. What kind of person do you think I am?”

She opens her mouth to speak, but I keep going. “You know what? I don’t want to know what kind of person you think I am. Instead, I’m going to tell you who I am. I’m the little girl who felt special because her father, who’d always been closer to her brother, started showing her attention. The girl who was scared and confused when her mother suddenly wanted nothing to do with her. Who didn’t get why her brother stopped playing ball or why her dad started to be gone all the time. Who thought if she got good enough grades and did all her homework and didn’t date and just tried to be good that everything would be okay.”

“Delaney—”

“No. I’m not done yet. I was a scared little kid who suddenly found out her father killed a boy. Whose dad went to jail and her brother, her best friend, drifted farther away from her. And you? That whole time you never held me or told me it would be okay or never cried with me. You let me find you bleeding to death. I held you and thought you were going to die and then you blamed me for saving you!”

I find myself standing over Mom, shouting while she stares at me, gaping. “And still! Still I thought if I was good enough or nice enough or tried to fix things, they would be okay. But they weren’t. You hated me more and Maddy lost more of himself and I tried, tried so badly to hold it together for us all. I went to see the woman I thought was the little boy’s mom! I bet you didn’t know that. And I apologized for what Daddy did, and she, this woman I didn’t know, cried with me when you never did!”

“Delaney!” she screams, standing up and letting everything fall from her lap.

“No. You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to stop me from saying this. All I wanted was for us to be okay. To try and be some kind of family after everything that happened. To deserve to be okay again and then I hurt—no, I fucking broke—the only person to ever really make me feel normal. To make me smile and to see that I had secrets and imperfections inside me but to like me regardless of them. I loved him. And I think he could have loved me. Me.” My closed fist comes down against my chest, over my heart. “Me. And I ruined it. I betrayed him and what he meant to me and I’ll never, ever forgive myself for that.”

She slaps me, whipping my head to the side. My hand shoots to my stinging face, holding my cheek as we stand there staring at each other.

“How dare you talk to me like that! He was my husband. Mine. My life was ruined because of him. I lost my home and we had debts to pay, debts he told me he’d been taking care of. You didn’t have to deal with any of that, so don’t make this out like you lost more than me.”

Finally, finally my tears have dried. I can’t shed any more. Not for her or my father. “It’s not about who lost the most. It’s about trying to make it through it together.”

“Get out,” she tells me.

I close my eyes. Take a deep breath. Consider saying more, but I can’t. It’s not in me any longer.

“Get out,” she says again.

“I love you, Mom. Take care of yourself. I can’t help you do it anymore.”

For the second time in a week, I leave when someone tells me to, only this time, everything inside me doesn’t wish I could go back.

Chapter Twenty-Three

~Adrian~

I drove until I was almost out of gas, pulled over to fill up, and started driving again before I stopped at some nothing town in South Carolina. I haven’t left the tiny, dark hotel room since I got here.

Money’s tight and soon I won’t have any more, but I don’t care. Don’t fucking care about anything.

I haven’t smoked weed since before I left. Not like I couldn’t find it if I wanted to, but it was never about a need for me. It wasn’t about addiction. It was about forgetting and now I can’t let myself forget. It’s there in my head all the time, raining down on me. Flooding me and I’m drowning in it.

I’m ready to let myself sink.

My eyes sting because I don’t close them for long. Every time I do, I see Ash. See him smiling at me. See him fucking loving me as the car is coming at him. His little body on the ground and knowing that I failed him.

Except now it’s not a guy behind the wheel. It’s Laney and it makes the loss multiply until I feel nothing but the pain.

Daddy, daddy, daddy. His voice is in my ears and his face in my head and sometimes it makes me smile because I think it’s real. Think I hear his voice or see his face, but even in those dreams or thoughts where we’re not standing in that yard, the car always comes and it always takes him from me.

I grab Ash’s shirt and push it into my pocket, needing to get out of the room. Pulling the door open, everything freezes inside me at the same time I’m burning alive.

“Motherfucker.” I lunge at Delaney’s brother as he stands outside my hotel room. My forearm goes straight to his throat as I back him up against the brick wall and hold him there. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I’ve been following your ass through two states.”

“How the hell—”

Maddox cuts me off. His voice is rough as it tries to squeeze out from under the pressure I’m putting on him. “I left, but I was worried about Laney so I asked around about where you lived. It wasn’t hard to find out. When I got there, you were leaving. I started to follow you and for some reason, I just kept going. When I finally decided to talk to you, it was kind of hard to catch you since you’re not man enough to leave your room.”

Jerking my arm away from him, I let my fist fly right into his face. Blood rushes out of his nose and I flash to Ash, which gives him the delay he needs to run at me. He slams me into the wall on the other side of the walkway, before he hits me back. With everything I have in me, I push off the wall and we hit the other one, then the ground, both of us swinging at each other. Neither of us getting anywhere, besides trading blows.

“You’re a bastard and you don’t deserve my sister. She doesn’t deserve to get hurt for trying to make things right,” he says between punches.

“She fucking lied to me. She was playing games the whole fucking time!” I groan when his fist slams into my stomach.

“If you think that, then you definitely don’t deserve her, because you don’t know shit about her.”

And damned if I don’t know he’s right. If I don’t know those ghosts in her eyes were because she was just as haunted as me. If I don’t remember how she touched me and how she looked at me and the gift she gave me… but still, all that time she knew.

I pull my fist back to hit him again and he doesn’t try to stop me. He just lies there, and I want to hit him so bad. Want him to feel some of the pain I do, but instead I push off him and sit against the building. We’re in an outside hallway. I’m surprised no one came out with the fighting, but don’t care either.

“Knowing her or not doesn’t matter. It’s not enough.” I’m breathing heavy. My face and body are killing me.

Maddox curses before grabbing a backpack from the ground. He pulls something out of it to wipe the blood from his face before he sits across from me. Neither of us speaks for a long time and then he reaches into his bag again, pulls out a fifth of whiskey, takes a pull, and then hands me the bottle.

It takes me a second, but I grab it, take a drink, and then hand it back.

“She cares too much,” he finally says. “She’s sweet… despite all the shit we’ve been through. I know it doesn’t make sense, but in her mind she thought it would help. She wanted to believe she had the power to make it better.”

I grab the bottle from him and take another drink. I know he’s right. Know she wanted to try and fix it. That was one of my favorite things about her, wasn’t it? How sweet she was. How innocent. But then I see Ash again and the pain squeezes me so tight I can’t breathe. “It’s still not enough.”

“Then you’re a bigger pussy than I thought,” Maddox says.

“And what are you running from? Don’t sit there and pretend you’re not fucking weak too. Don’t pretend she’s never shed tears over you.”

“Touché.” He takes a drink. “Did she tell you she found Mom the first time she tried to kill herself? That Mom knew Laney would be home soon. That she’d be the one to find her, yet she still slit her wrists in the unlocked bathroom right before Laney got home. That my little sister was scared to death her mom would die and she sat in her blood with her mom’s head in her lap and when she was okay, that same mom yelled at her for saving her. That she was pissed she was alive and blamed Laney.”

“Fuck.” I drop my head backward. Look at the ceiling. I knew she had tried to kill herself, but I didn’t know the details.

“I know you lost someone but you’re not the only one. She watched her mom almost die, more than once. She still loves her and cares about her, even though she always gets shut down. She lost her dad that day too. She lives with those memories. Lives with the knowledge that her mom will never love her like she should, yet she’s a whole hell of a lot better than we are. She doesn’t fucking run. She’s stronger than we could ever hope to be.”

Maddox pushes to his feet, hands me the bottle, and grabs his bag. “And for some reason, she loves you. Hurting you will be something else she lives with. It will eat her up inside and it will kill another part of her, like Dad and Mom did. Like even I do, but she’ll keep on living. I wish I was that brave.”

I watch as her brother walks away, leaving a trail of blood behind him as he goes.

* * *

“I hiding! Find me!”

Ash’s voice echoes around me. I look at the couch, his favorite hiding spot, and he’s not there.

“Hurry! Find me!”

“Where’d you go, little man? You found a new hiding spot. I can’t find you.” I’m smiling, proud of him for finding a real place to hide this time.

I search the living room, but he’s not there. The kitchen. Our room. Angel’s room. The bathroom.

“Daddy! Find me!”

My heart is starting to hammer and I’m beginning to sweat. “Where are you, Ash? I can’t find you.”

I look in the backyard and through the house again and I’m running now. Freaking out because I can hear him, but I can’t see him. I have to find him. How can I lose my own son?

“Daddy. Hurry.” His voice comes from the other side of the front door. Everything stops. I start to shake. I can’t go out there. If I do, I’ll find him and I don’t want to see him out there.

“Ashton?” I creep toward the door.

“Here, silly,” his voice says from outside. My hand shakes as I open the door and he’s sitting there, in the yard, eating pancakes. Holding his favorite shirt on his lap.

“Ash. Get in the house. You have to come inside.” I’m fucking crying now because I know if he stays out there he’ll die. I can’t let him die this time. He’s my son. He thinks I can do anything. I have to save him.

“Can’t.” He shakes his head. “Can’t go in.”

“You have to.” I try to grab him, but I can’t. It’s as though there’s an invisible barrier around him keeping him from me. “Ash. Come on, little man. You have to come inside. Come to Daddy.”

“Can’t,” he says again, and he’s looking at me with syrup on his face, his big, happy smile.

I try to grab him again, but I can’t get within a couple feet of him. I’m panicking now. “You have to try. You have to come in the house or you’re going to die!”

At that, his little smile morphs into a frown. And I know he knows. Know he’s known since before I came out here that he can’t leave this yard. That he’s going to die.

“Sorry, Daddy.” He grabs the shirt. And then he gets up. He walks toward me and he hugs me. I don’t know what happened to whatever kept me from him, but it’s gone and he’s in my arms hugging me as tight as his little body will let him.

But I know. I know I still can’t save him. “I’m sorry. I love you. I wanted to be better for you. I wanted to protect you and do better for you than my dad did for me.” Tears are running down my face and I’m holding him, squeezing him tighter than I probably should, but I can’t let him go.

“I lub you too.”

I look at him and smile.

“Smile!” He claps his hands. “Daddy’s happy.” And he has that huge grin again. The one that makes me feel fucking invincible. “Play!”

So I play with him. We play chase and hide-and-seek and he laughs and I laugh. We tumble to the ground and I wrestle with him and tickle him. And then he just stops. Stops and looks at me with those brown eyes that are just like mine and the dark hair that’s just like mine and he climbs into my lap in the middle of the yard.

“Tell me a story,” he says.

So I do. I tell him about a boy who was the coolest kid I’ve ever known. How his smile made everyone happy and how he makes me love pancakes and how there is no one in the world as important as he is. I tell him how much I love him and how much his auntie loves him and how happy he makes me.”

For the first time in any story I’ve ever told him, Ash interrupts. “Happy?”

“Yeah, little man. Happy.”

“I like it when Daddy’s happy.”

Fuck. I do too. I didn’t have a lot of happy in my life, but those two years away from home, living with my sister and with him… I was happy. Knowing I was going to college and that I’d be someone he could look up to, it made me happy.

“I want to be happy.”

“Then do!” He smiles. Like it’s that easy. Like I should just know that and be able to do it.

“I love you,” I tell him again.

“Lub you. I like Daddy’s stories.” And he wraps his arms around my neck. Squeezes me, and this time when he goes, there’s no car. No blood. No little broken body. He’s just… gone.

I jerk upward and jump out of the hotel bed. The empty bottle of whiskey is sitting there. It sounds crazy, but I swear to fucking God I feel him. I remember how it felt to have him in my lap and to have his arms around me and to play with him and the exact sound of his voice when he said I love you.

“I like Daddy’s stories,” he’d said, and suddenly my fingers itch to write. I pull open all the drawers until I find a pad of paper and a pen and I start filling it. Writing on the front and back of every page. Writing to Ash. Writing about Ash and life and poems and stories. Whatever comes to my head, I write it.

When the paper is gone, I run out of the room across the street to the corner store and buy every notebook I can find before I’m back in the dark room again writing to my son. About him.

I’m doing it for him. For me. For Angel. Hell, maybe even for my ghost. I only know I have to do it. That I can’t stop. With each word I see his smile and I feel him again and I know I’m doing what he would want me to do.

I write that I’d always wanted to be a good dad to him, better than I had been, but I haven’t been doing it. I tell him how young I was and I didn’t think I was ready to be a father but that I want him to know how much I wanted him. Even if I wasn’t ready to at first, he stole my heart and made me wish to be a better man. That if I had it to do over again, I would be different. Would be what he deserved. That all these pages and all these words and my hands that cramp and hurt are my apology. They’re my way of being the person he deserved for me to be.

* * *

For the first time in four years, I stand in front of the house I shared with my sister. I look like shit. I haven’t slept much. I’m screwed up from my fight with Maddox, though in the week I’ve been writing and then driving here, the bruises are fading.

But I’m here. Looking at a new fence around the yard. The new speed bumps on the street and at the signs that say to go slow. That say traffic fines are double and children are at play.

They have my son’s name on them. They’re for him.

And I know that’s what my sister has been doing to be okay. That’s how she’s been fighting for Ashton. While I’ve been running and… fuck, dying, she’s been living for him. It’s not like she’s ever had much. The house is tiny and it’s in a shitty neighborhood, but she still did something. She fought, probably with all she had, for my son.

It took me long enough, but the notebooks full of our story are the start of my fight.

I let myself in the gate and walk up to the front door. That ache in my chest spreads being here. Looking at that spot I held him last and where I played with him in real life and in my dream. I almost can’t breathe.

The steps still creak like they used to as I walk up them. There’s a weight fighting to pull me back because I need to do this. I have to. For Ashton.

My fist comes down on the door in a knock. It’s only a few seconds later I hear my sister say, “Hold on!”

Four years. I haven’t talked to her in four years. I left her right after she lost her nephew. What was wrong with me?

Less than a minute later, she opens the door. Her hand shoots to her mouth, covering it and it’s shaking.

“Hey,” I say. She doesn’t look much different. I notice her hair’s a little longer and that she has her ears pierced. She never had them done before.

“Hey…,” she replies. And then she flies at me. Her arms wrap around my neck the way Ashton’s did in my dream. I hold her back and she cries into my neck. “Adrian… you’re home. I can’t believe you’re home.”

“I’m sorry, Angel. So fucking sorry.”

She laughs, still hugging me. “You still have a bad mouth.”

“I can’t help it.”

And then we go inside and we sit on the couch. We talk about Ashton and our lives the past four years. We cry and I tell her everything. How I wanted to get lost. How I wanted to forget and live this façade that wasn’t real. I even tell her about Delaney and the book in my hands. Then I picture the little boy with my eyes, and I think I’m finally giving him a reason to be proud of me.