Four
A Simple Realization of a Simple, Undeniable Fact
“Chase!” Amanda gasped.
I wanted to look at her, to see if she was laughing at what her sister had just said. But I couldn’t. I stared at Chase, her question echoing in my head. Find out I was a what?
The thing with Chase is she has that distinct speech of one who’s grown up without hearing clearly. Sometimes, especially when she’s in a mood – either playful or surly – her words aren’t always clear. Amanda suspected Chase emphasized it at times, just to see how the person she was talking to would react.
Now had to be one of those times. Had to be. Otherwise . . .
“You know that’s why you’re here, right?” Chase looked at me with an unwavering gaze. “You didn’t think the golden child over there just invited you all this way to screw in the shower, did you? I mean, after what Dad told her, the very fact you are here means she’s decided to—”
“Chase,” Amanda repeated, horror in her voice.
I blinked. My gut churned and rolled. “I’m sorry?”
Chase snorted, her lips twisting in a smirk. “No need to apologize to me. I’m not the one you knocked—”
“That’s enough, Chase.”
Cold anger filled Amanda’s sharp snap. I turned to her, my eyes burning. “I don’t understand what’s going on.”
“Oh my God, you didn’t tell him?”
I looked back at Chase. Dull pressure throbbed in my temples and behind my eyes. In the few times I’d been in Chase’s company, I’d never really known what she was thinking. She could be the most wonderful, warm person in the world when she wanted to be, or the most cutting.
Now, she regarded me with an expression I could only describe as contrite disbelief. “Oh God, I didn’t . . . Oh wow. Oh wow.”
Something cold and invisible punched me in the chest. I drew in a sharp breath, unable to move.
Chase seemed equally frozen, her eyes flicking from me to where Amanda stood, out of my peripheral vision. “Sis? You didn’t . . . he doesn’t know?”
“Know what?” I asked her. Her. Not Amanda. I couldn’t look at Amanda. If I did, I don’t know what I would do. Or say.
“Sis?” Chase repeated, looking like a tiny rabbit trapped in rapidly approaching headlights.
“Bren,” Amanda’s voice was little more than a husky rasp. “I should have . . . I mean . . . I didn’t mean to . . . I didn’t know how . . .”
“Know what, Chase?” I repeated, ignoring Amanda. My whole body felt like it was being ripped apart. An invisible, icy fist was slamming into me, over and over. My head roared, my eyes were on fire. “Tell me, because it seems like your sister hasn’t got the guts to do so.”
Chase winced. Amanda made a choked noise. “Oh God, Brendon, I didn’t . . . I’m sorry. I don’t . . . I wish . . .”
And still I couldn’t look at her. Still, all I could do was fix my stare on her sister and wait. Wait. Even as I knew what she was going to say.
Knew.
“You’re a daddy, Brendon,” Chase finally said. “You have an eighteen-month-old son called—”
I turned on my heel and strode for the bathroom. I didn’t stop when Amanda called after me, didn’t look at her when she came bursting into the room.
“Brendon, I should have told you at the airport.” Tears filled her voice. I didn’t look at her as I snatched up my gym bag and backpack and flung them over my shoulder. “I should have told you . . .”
I swung around to face her. It took every effort in my being not to clench my fist. “When you found out you were pregnant. That’s when you should have told me.”
A sob tore from her. A tear slipped from her eye. I watched its path. Watched it travel over her cheek, down past the corner of her mouth. Watched it disappear beneath her jaw.
And then I sucked in a deep breath and left the bathroom, walked through her living room, and headed for the door.
“Good to see you again, Chase,” I threw over my shoulder as I passed her – still standing where I’d first seen her in a different life. “Take care.”
“Brendon, you should—”
I yanked open the apartment door, stepped through it and slammed it shut behind me before she could finish telling me what I should do.
Calm down? Stay? Sit down and have coffee and cookies while we “talked this out”?
No.
I’ve never run away from anything in my life. I’ve faced down any challenge thrown at me. Rolled with the outcome. Learned from it. Used what I’d learned to live a better life, to move forward. I wasn’t running now, but I couldn’t be there. Not at that moment. I couldn’t process it. I couldn’t . . .
Fuck, I couldn’t . . .
I was a father. I’d been a father for eighteen months, and Amanda hadn’t told me.
I’d been in the country with her for over three hours. I’d sat in a car with her for almost ninety minutes and she hadn’t told me. I’d fucked her in the shower, and she hadn’t told me.
I’d been inside her, and she hadn’t told me.
She. Hadn’t. Told. Me.
The hot San Diego sun blasted at me as I exited the apartment building and hurried down the path to the sidewalk. Behind me, I heard Chase calling me. Chase. Not Amanda.
The rational side of my brain – the one that still operated no matter how fucked up the situation was, the chillaxed side of my brain – pointed out Amanda would no doubt be getting dressed. She’d only been wrapped in a towel when I’d left, after all. In a messed-up situation like this a girl like Amanda wouldn’t come running after the guy she’d lied to, deceived, kept a secret from, wearing only a towel. No, she’d deck herself out in hey-I’m-going-to-change-your-life-forever appropriate attire, perfect for kicking a guy’s soul clear out of his—
“Brendon,” Amanda’s cry scraped at my sanity. “Stop!”
I didn’t. Not even to see if she was dressed or not.
“Please stop. I need to explain. I didn’t want you to find out this way.”
One of the things that always blows my mind when I visit the States is how easy it is to get a taxi. They seem to be everywhere. So at that point, when I saw the taxi heading along the street from the opposite direction, I didn’t hesitate. Without slowing my pace, I gripped the straps of my gym bag and backpack tighter and strode out onto the street, arm raised in that universal signal for “get me the fuck out of here now”.
The taxi stopped. I climbed into the back and slammed the door behind me, with barely a glance at Amanda and Chase running toward us. The fact Amanda was still only wearing a towel unsettled me more than I wanted to admit. “Airport, please,” I growled at the poor driver. I’d apologize to him later. It wasn’t his fault I’d just had my heart, my life, torn apart.
If he was curious about the fact I was only half dressed, he didn’t comment. If he wondered about the woman running down the street wrapped in a towel, with another woman with brilliant blue dreadlocks running behind her, he didn’t say anything. Neither did I. Nor did I look out the window at Amanda as the taxi sped away from her. Instead, I stared out the front window and cursed myself for being the biggest fucking idiot wanker on the planet.