“What about Dillan?” Nathan asks after I close the boot and make my way back to the house. “Can I still see him?”
“I’ll call you,” I respond and step into the living room. “Hey little man!” I try to give him my biggest smile. Dillan seems to like it, even though it’s forced and definitely fake.
I carry him out to the car, with Nathan trailing behind me. “I really wish you’d stay. We can work through this.” I pull open the back door and strap Dillan into his car seat.
“I’ll send mum for my stuff. You can pick your car up later. If you could pack everything, that would be a big help.”
He lets out a choked breath and looks away for a moment, as if trying to compose himself. When he turns back, he leans into the car and kisses Dillan’s forehead. Then he turns to me, his eyes moist and round with sorrow. “What if you’re pregnant?”
“I’ll worry about that if it comes to it.” I refuse to address this part as of yet.
“Will you…” He clears his throat, his hands balling into fists by his sides. “Will you tell me?”
I stop in my tracks, my hand resting on the car door. I don’t know what to say. We both know what my choice will be. “It’s probably better if you don’t know.”
His hand wipes across his mouth, his fingertips pinching his lips for a moment. “You won’t keep it… will you?”
I close my eyes, pushing more tears that I didn’t know were building down my cheeks. Shaking my head, I slide into the driver’s seat and place the key in the ignition.
“Gwen, god, I…” He chokes on his words, his eyes glistening. “I don’t know what to say to make you stay.”
“I don’t think there’s anything you can say,” I murmur, swallowing the lump in my throat and taking a deep breath to calm myself. “It’s done. I’ll never get past this.”
He looks up to the sky and inhales a large staggering breath. His eyes close for a long moment and I see wetness seep from between his lids and leave a shiny trail along the side of his nose. He wipes it away quickly and nods, taking a step back. “I’m lost without you, Gwen.”
“You’ll be okay,” I reassure him, my chest tingling at the sight of his tears.
He moves away from the door and I quickly close it. Using two of his fingers, he kisses the tips and places them against the glass.
I put the car in reverse and drive away.
I don’t look back.
It just hurts so much.
My chest feels empty. All I can feel is pain. So much pain.
When I pull into my mum’s, I sit parked in the driveway for what seems like a lifetime. I should have listened to her. I should never have gotten with Caleb.
I smack my hands against the steering wheel, my eyes blurring with tears. Then I smack them again and again until finally my body gives out and I slump forward onto my arms. The tears come in streams, never stopping, never relenting, just like the pain I feel inside.
My sobs are loud and make it hard for me to breathe.
I feel like I’m dying. I feel like I’m drowning.
“Why me? Why couldn’t you have found somebody else to ruin? I gave up everything for you!” The car door opens and I’m pulled out.
“Gwen, come on, let’s go inside,” my mum says softly and helps me towards the door.
As soon as we step inside, my legs buckle and we both fall to the floor. She holds me tight, her arms wrapped around me as I cling to her and cry into her chest.
“Everything’s a lie,” I sob. “Everything! Dillan, Caleb, Nathan. It’s all a lie.”
What would you do if you were to wake up tomorrow and see that this was all a dream? Would you do it all over again?
I’d go back to sleep and never wake up.
It has all been a dream, one sick twisted dream where an innocent, naïve, immature girl has been sucked into a life that should never have been hers.
“How could he do this?”
“Baby,” my mum says hoarsely, running her hand through her hair. “You need to tell me what’s happened. I can’t help you if I don’t know.”
“I trusted him. I loved him!”
“Are we talking about Nathan?”
I can’t answer. My throat hurts; the lump in it won’t shift and my eyes won’t open, they’re that swollen. “I hate them both. Where’s Dillan?”
“He’s in the living room; he’s okay.”
“I couldn’t… I’m a bad mum. I don’t... It hurts too much.”
“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.