“No?” I closed my fingers around her wrists and removed her hands from my chest. “You just waited until time had almost run out before calling me, though, didn’t you? I could be wrong, but that seems to me to be the very definition of last resort. I’m sorry I fucked up and failed you, babe.”
And with that, I dropped her wrists and strode through the living room to the bathroom. My gym bag and backpack were still in there – the only things I had brought to the US apart from a woefully inadequate defense against everything Amanda could do to me.
“Brendon,” she called after me. She grabbed my arm as I snatched up my bag. “Brendon stop. I need to explain. I need you to understand.”
“I understand it very clearly, Amanda,” I shot back. “I’ll get out of your road now. I’ve come up lacking so there’s no need for me to be here, is there?”
I didn’t wait for her to respond. At that point, nothing she said would have helped. I’d failed her. I’d failed our son. And Robby with his Rolex was there to do what I couldn’t.
Go Robby. Yay.
Robby, the hero that he was, was standing in the living room when I stormed back in, my shirt and shoes in his hands. “You might need these,” he suggested.
Sucking a slow breath, I took them from him and got into his personal space. I held his gaze and smiled, or maybe sneered. I really couldn’t be sure. “Thanks, mate.”
He flinched. Not a lot, but a flinch all the same – a slight turn of the head, a small shuffle of feet.
“Bren,” Amanda grabbed at my arm again. “Please, this isn’t—”
“What I think?” I shot her a look over my shoulder. “Nothing has been since I arrived, Amanda. And I’m done with it.”
Without another word, I left. I didn’t slam the door. I didn’t turn to see if Amanda was coming after me. For the second time that day, I left Amanda’s apartment in an emotional state that scared me. For the second time that day, I’d stormed from her home half naked.
For the second time that day, I’d wished to fucking God, I’d never met her.
And straight away, before the regret finished tainting my anger, I knew that wasn’t the case. Because of Tanner.
I had to go see my son. Now. I had to see Parker Waters. I had to find out what happened next. I had to find out what I could do.
Stopping on the steps outside the apartment building, I dropped my bag at my feet, tugged on my shoes and pulled my shirt over my head – no university letters on this one, just a cartoon dog farting a music note.
“Brendon.”
My gut clenched at Amanda’s shout behind me. I turned and watched her hurry toward me through the foyer.
“Brendon, you need to let me explain.” She caught my hand and held it tight. “Please, at least give me that?”
“Because I can’t give you want you really want from me?”
Fresh pain filled her face. “I wanted to call you the second Parker confirmed none of my family was a match. The second. I had my phone in my hand, your number on its screen.”
“So why didn’t you?”
She looked away, her forehead creased in a disgusted frown. “Because Dad said he wouldn’t pay for Tanner’s medical expenses if I did.”
I let out a frustrated breath, bunching my fists as I shook my head. “He hates me that much, eh? He’d rather risk the chance of his grandson getting better than let me back into your life?”
“He thinks he’s trying to do what’s best for me.”
“And obviously I’m not.”
She turned back to me. Tears swam in her eyes and clung to her eyelashes. What I would have given to cup her face in my hands and kiss them away. “I should have told him off,” she said, the words a husky rasp. “Should have told him to mind his own business, but the health care system over here is . . . well, it’s not the Australian system. And I couldn’t afford to do it on my own.”
A hot pain sheared through my heart. “If you’d called me, you wouldn’t have been on your own. I would have been here with you. I would have liked the chance to be there from the beginning. I would have helped you in every way I could.”
Her bottom lip trembled. “Bren . . . I’m sorry . . .”
I gazed at her, devoured every line on her face, every freckle, every mark. Committed it to memory. And then I did cup her jaw in my palm. And I did bend down and kiss away the hot tears on her eyelashes.
“Bren,” she murmured, leaning into me, her hands on my chest, over my heart.
“I’ve loved you since the day I met you, Mandy,” I whispered against her eyes. “Be happy.”
I turned and walked down the path. Away from her.
“Brendon . . .” she called.
I didn’t look back. And she didn’t come after me.
It was, I think, for the better.
Eleven
Life Isn’t A Fantasy
For the third time, I flagged down a taxi without any problem.
Settling into the back, I gave the driver the address for New Dawn Children’s Hospital and then pulled out my phone and scrolled through my contact list. I don’t know why. My head felt fuzzy, disconnected in some way. Watching the list of names move up the screen somehow helped calm me.
When my brain snagged on Caden’s name, I tapped the Message icon, let out a slow breath, and began typing.
Hey, Cade. The test came back and I’m not a match. I’m going to see if there’s any way Mum and Dad can be tested in Australia. And Ben, although as far as I know he’s in Nepal. Don’t mention it to them yet. Just thought I’d let someone from my family know what’s going on and you drew the short straw. Sorry about that, dude.
I hit Send. The digital whoosh filled the taxi, letting me know I’d successfully shared my misery with another person. How much I’d changed in a few short hours. The me that had left Australia would never have done such a thing.
I went to shove my phone back in my pocket but stopped. I found myself scrolling through my contacts again, swiping my thumb up and down the screen with a blind, blank motion. I ached. Not just in my heart, but everywhere. I pictured Charles Sinclair in front of me. Pictured telling the bastard to mind his own fucking business. Pictured demanding he tell me why I wasn’t good enough for his daughter.
I pictured Robby’s Rolex. His smug smirk as he handed me my shoes and my shirt with its musical-note farting dog on its front.
I thought of the pain in Amanda’s face as she confessed what her father had done, what he’d promised. I remembered the rapture when she came in the shower, on her sofa . . .
And then I watched my contact list with all its Australian numbers scroll up and down the screen. Numbers that included my Australian bank manager, my Australian real estate agent who was hard at work finding me a building for the first ever Push It P/T studio. Numbers that included my university boss, my professors . . . Heather’s number. Twenty-five years of life represented in those numbers. A life lived in Australia. A future planned there . . .
Did Charles Sinclair’s hate for me stem from the fact I wasn’t of an intellectual level he deemed appropriate for his daughter? Or because I lived on the other side of the world? Or both? Or neither? Would he ever change his mind?