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“Okay,” she whispers, still stroking my hair.
“Nothing will ever be the same again.”
“It might feel like that now…”
I shake my head. “It’ll always feel like this. Always.”
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
“She doesn’t want to see you.”
“She needs to hear me out.”
“She’s not in the right frame of mind to hear you out, Nathan.”
“Please Dawn, please just let me see her.”
She sighs, long and deep. “Just go. I think you and your brother have done enough damage.”
I bring my knees to my chest and bury my toes in the sand.
“Dawn…”
“No, Nathan. I knew there wasn’t something right about you but you were good to them, so I ignored it. I should have followed my gut.”
“Please. I love her.”
“You’ve destroyed her!” She bellows and I cover my face with the blanket.
A tear falls and then another.
“I know,” he says, inhaling a shuddering breath. “I didn’t want her to find out.”
“Well she did.”
There was a pause and I heard my boy’s protests, no doubt at being moved around. “Please don’t take him from me. If I lose her, he’s all I have.”
“That’s Gwen’s decision.”
“I made a mistake.”
“Yes. You did.” The front door creaks as it opens. “Now go. Don’t come back until she says so.”
“Dawn, please…”
“I trust you’ll be giving her everything Caleb promised her?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Good. Now get out.”
The door slams.
The sun is setting. It’s getting cold, but I can’t feel it on my skin. All I can feel is my hair whipping across my face with the strong breeze.
This is where we met, Caleb and I. It’s the first time I’ve been here since before he died. It’s shocking how easy it is to sit here, to remember the good times we had. It feels like a dream; it doesn’t feel real.
The only thing that feels real is my hate for him, my hate for Nathan.
My hate for the fact that I’m the one who got pulled into these sick and twisted games they’ve played.
And Dillan… poor Dillan. He’ll grow up without a father because his father was a selfish bastard, and then the person who took on the role of his father let us both down.
“Please don’t take him from me. If I lose her, he’s all I have.”
Get out of my head! Everybody just get out of my head!
My phone rings. It’s mum. I answer. “I’ll be home soon.”
“Where are you? You’ve been gone a while. Dillan’s getting hungry.”
“Just ten more minutes,” I breathe, my hands trembling from the cold I don’t feel.
She exhales a long breath. “Okay, but be quick. I’m not sure how much longer I can distract him and we’re out of milk.”
Damn it. “Okay, I’m on my way.”
“I love you,” she says and I hang up.
Love?
It’s nothing but a weakness. A plague.
I walk home slowly, taking the long way. I’m hoping for some kind of revelation, something that will make me suddenly feel better, like the punch line to a joke. Maybe Caleb will pop out from behind a car and go, “Just kidding!” Although right now I think that would make everything so much worse.
That’s what this is right? Just one big joke.
I close the door and rush to my fussy little boy. He goes to me eagerly and accepts his dinner without bother. Mum watches me, her eyes sad and weary.
“Do you feel better after your walk?”
“Not really,” I reply honestly. She can see from my face that nothing has changed.
“He was sitting up all by himself, though he fell a few times and got quite frustrated with himself.” She smiles and follows me into the room.
“Did you?” I grin, using my baby voice to Dillan, who’s still suckling away. His eyes come to me and I almost gasp at how much he looks like Nathan when he’s frowning. Shudder. That’s strange. “Don’t frown. You’ll get wrinkles.”
“The same can be said to you,” my mum says with a quirked brow.
I shrug and settle into the corner of the couch. My phone, which has been switched off since I left the other day, is sat on the desk beside the sofa and more than anything I want to pick it up and switch it on. It’s weird not using it. I use it for so much, but I just can’t handle anything right now.
“Is that Sasha coming up the driveway?” My Mum asks, peeking between the blinds over the window. “She’s carrying something. You stay there, I’ll get it.”
“Okay.” I wait and listen as the front door opens.
I wait and listen to hushed whispers. Then the door closes and mum returns to the room with a small box in her hands.
“What’s that?” I nod at the box as she places it on the coffee table. She shrugs. “No idea. Sasha said that Nathan asked her to bring it round. She said that he insisted you read them before you make any final decisions.”
