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Chapter 29 – Roller Coaster
Vander
She didn’t know.
If there was one thing I knew for certain, it was that she didn’t know. My anger at her melted away, and I leaned back against the counter to wait her out.
I needed to put aside my own feelings of anger, grief, and despair. I’d planned to work through some of those tonight, on my own, so I could be clearheaded when confronting Ruby with the truth tomorrow.
I spun the mental rolodex of pictures in my head. There were hundreds of pictures of George on my phone, I definitely had pictures from two and a half years ago when George was the same age as Jace was now.
Jace.
My son.
With Ruby.
The son I unwittingly abandoned.
I reached for my phone and opened the photo app, worried about how hard this would hit Ruby when she realized the truth, how angry she would be that I never reached out to her after the conference, how guilty she was going to feel about Jace, about me, about Drew.
I found the picture I was looking for. The resemblance was uncanny.
Showing it to her, I watched as she struggled to come to terms with what she was seeing. My heart ached for her, for myself, for our son, for the family we could have been all these years.
She raised pain-filled eyes to mine. “Jace?”
It took another moment, and I welcomed her touch as she held my shaking hand steady to study the picture on the screen.
I heard her cell phone buzz again, and guessed it was her sister. Both Amber and Yiayia looked back and forth between me and Jace all through dinner.
I watched the emotions skitter across her face and my heart ached for the shock and pain I was about to deliver.
She whispered, “Who is that?”
“George.”
She stumbled back and wobbled a little before reaching out to brace her hand on the wall beside her. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and stared at the screen before accepting the call.
“Amber?” She sounded young and lost as she listened to Amber.
“I know. He just told me.” She sniffed. “Of course, I didn’t know! I would have told him.” Tears ran down her face unheeded. “I’ll, um, call you later… Wait! Can you, can you take Jace home with you tonight?” She whispered. “I don’t want him to see me like this.”
She raised a shaking hand to cover her eyes. “Mm-hmm. Okay. I love you, too. Mm-hmm. Text me when you leave, and please tell Yiayia I’m going to be late.” She listened while Amber spoke, nodding and adding the occasional mm-hmm, and then disconnected the call.
Always, where Ruby was concerned, I was hopelessly inept. I stood with my hands stiff at my sides, like a gunslinger ready to draw, as she tucked her phone back into her pocket, her chin angled towards the floor, her eyes staring at nothing.
Without looking at me, she spun slowly on her heel, her body strung tight like a bow. “I better go…”
Two steps plastered my chest to her back, and I wrapped my arms tightly around her waist, curving my body protectively around hers.
She curled into herself for just a moment, choking back a sob. Then her back arched, her head pressed back against my shoulder, and the most godawful sound erupted from the depths of her ruptured heart.
I hung onto her, tried to turn her in my arms, but she twisted away, gasping for breath.
“Ruby,” I whispered, pained.
She grasped my forearms, holding onto me just like she had in the car the other night. She tried to speak, but her words were incoherent.
