Fractured Affections (The Affections Series Book 1) (13 page)

“Maybe, we should all go home and make sure Mom’s okay. I can help take care of her today. It’s just one day of school.” I turn to look at Dylan after he speaks. He is clearly concerned for Rea.

“She will be fine, Dyl. I’m gonna drop you guys off, since we’re already here. Then I’m heading straight home to make sure your mom is alright. I promise to take care of her.”

Dylan still looks just as concerned and says, “Dad should be home. Mom hasn’t been the same since he left. I hate it. When I get home today, I’m calling Dad and telling him to come back.”

I wish I knew how different her behavior has been since my arrival at her door. I’m pretty sure I’m more of the reason for the change Dylan has noticed in his mother than Dalton. I reach over and squeeze Dylan’s shoulder. “I’ll go see what I can do to help your mom. If I can’t then I will call your dad for help. Sound good?” Dylan nods his head yes. “Good, don’t worry, bud, she’ll be in good hands. I promise. Just try to have a good day, and I’ll pick you guys up this afternoon.”

All three boys climb out of the car with book bags in hand. I wait until they enter the school building before I pull off and race back to the house. I quickly park the car and race up the steps, not aware of my surroundings; I just need to get to her.

“Striker!”

I’m completely caught off guard by Reagan’s voice and stumble up the last two steps, landing on both hands and knees. I try to calm my racing heart with my head dipped low, then slowly turn to look up at her on the porch swing. Her hand is covering her mouth from the shock of my fall, and her eyes are puffy from crying. My heart beats faster from seeing her like this. I slowly stand and walk over to her.

“What’s going on, Rea? Why are you crying?” I take a seat next to her and she turns to face me.

“I talked to Dalton after my panic attack and he knows.” Her hand raises up to wipe a single tear from her face.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, he knows what?”

“That we still care about each other. That I never stopped caring for you. I always thought I hid it so well, but I guess I’ve been terrible at it.”

I look out into the yard. “Reagan, I never hid how I felt about you from Dalton. Over all these years, he knew I was never able to move on.”

“Well, he thinks we need to talk about what happened, that I need closure. Because since you have been here; I’m slowly falling apart.”

“Let’s talk about it then. I can’t be here and watch you be this unhappy. If my being here is too hard on you, then I can find somewhere else to stay until Dalton comes back.”

Reagan reaches over and grabs my hand, intertwining her fingers with mine. “It wouldn’t matter if you left, so please don’t. We need you here right now. I just need to know what happened. Why did you leave me back then? I never heard from you again, not even once.”

“How could I have stayed?” I stand from the swing and lean my hands on the porch railing. “I had been talking with my aunt for a few weeks about joining the military, but it was so hard to think about leaving you. I never wanted to worry you, unless I had definitely decided to go. I never could have hurt you like that.”

“What? You did hurt me like that. I was a mess after you left, worse than anything you could ever expect. I could barely get through a day.”

“Is this what you called me home for, Rea, to try and make me feel like the bad guy?”

She stands and places a hand on my back. “Striker, that is not what this is. After our argument the other night, I know that there was something that happened to make you leave. I just need to know what it was. How could you have mistaken my feelings toward you?”

I keep my head low. “On the day I left, I had received a phone call from a recruitment officer, so I went to talk to my aunt. I felt like it was the best decision for us and our future, but I was so worried about how you would do while I was gone. She sat me down and started to tell me about how she walked past Dalton’s room to find you crying in his arms about how you guys would tell me.”

I feel her hand slip away, so I turn to see her walk to the opposite end of the porch and cross her arms over her chest. “What were we going to tell you, Striker? What did she say?”

“That you wanted to be with him, and that I should leave because my only reason for staying wasn’t a valid point anymore.”

When she turns to face me, tears are streaming down her face and her lower lip is trembling. “I wish you would have asked me before you left. Why did you never come to me? If I remember the conversation she overheard correctly, we were never talking about Dalton and I.”

The thought of missing out on a life with her, over a lie, puts a weight on my chest that makes it hard to breathe. “You married him months after I left. If you didn’t feel things for him, then how could you do that, huh? How could you make a commitment to another man if you loved me?”

“I had to. I never could have gone through things alone. You broke me when you left. My depression consumed me,” her voice is breaking as she points to her chest.

My pain is slowly turning to anger and it seeps through my words. “I was broken, too. In my eyes, I thought you were leaving me for my cousin, my best friend. I felt betrayed by both of you. I wasn’t able to think of the two of you together, let alone stay around to watch it.”

She walks up to me with so much hurt and pain evident on her face. “We weren’t together, Striker. When you left, we weren’t together. Dalton rescued me by marrying me. It took a long time to love him like I loved you.”

I stare back at her and try to hold back the tears that are burning my eyes. “Really, Rea? A long time, huh? Months, Rea. I have been in love with you for years, without being able to move on, but you moved on in a matter of months.”

Her head is shaking slowly back and forth and her lips draw down into a frown. “You’re wrong. It took almost two years for me to be with Dalton completely, but I never stopped loving you.”

“Right, Rea! Could have fooled me. Dylan’s ten, you were married and pregnant months after I left, and I’m supposed to believe it took you two years. Come on. There’s no reason to lie to me, I’ve dealt with the fact that you married Dalton ten years ago, why keep this up?”

Reagan’s silence is deafening. I feel my blood begin to boil inside of me. I clench my hands trying to control my temper. I turn and walk back to the porch railing, leaning down taking deep ragged breaths. Why is she doing this to me? It wasn’t only hard on her. At least she had Dalton to rely on. I was alone when they decided to be together. I lost both of them. To think back, to how that betrayal tore me open and left me raw is hard to swallow, even all these years later. She may have been broken but broken pieces can be fixed. I was completely shattered and that’s why she was able to move on and I wasn’t. I have lived everyday knowing that she chose him, that he was the one who got to hold her at night, while I spent my life afraid to love again.

“Striker, please come sit. I know we are both still hurt, but please.”

She lets out a sob and my anger withers a little. I turn to watch her sit on the swing. Her hair is in a messy bun on the top of her head with stray pieces blowing in the slight breeze. A frown is permanently fixed on her beautiful face. The face I have loved since the day we met, but we can’t go back. She belongs to Dalton now.

“Listen, Rea, I know now I should have never left without talking to you first. I don’t know why my aunt would lie to me, but we can’t change the way things turned out. Maybe we should just leave well enough alone. I loved you then, I love you now. I will love you forever but I can never have you.”

I turn and walk into the house. I’m about to cross the threshold to the guest room but am suddenly stopped by her small hand wrapping around my wrist.

“Striker, please let me finish.” She is crying harder now, causing her to hiccup as she speaks. I can’t take seeing her like this anymore. I wrap my arms tightly around her. If I thought she couldn’t get any more upset, then I was wrong. Her cries increase in volume and her body is shaking so hard with each stuttered breath. I leave one arm around her shoulders and sweep the other under her legs and carry her out to the couch.

I’m holding her in my lap for what seems like an eternity. Then she calms down and slides off of me to the couch. We stare into each other’s eyes for a beat, and I reach up to wipe away her tears. I hate that we have this kind of an effect on each other. The only thing I had ever wanted was to bring her happiness but there have been so many years of pain now. How do we move on? Dalton may think this will be good for us, but all we bring each other now is pain.

Reagan lifts a shaking hand and rests it against my cheek, it’s warm and comforting. My heart slows with her touch, and her thumb gently caresses my skin causing my eyes to close.

“The conversation your aunt overheard that day was partially true. I was crying while Dalton held me in his room, and we were discussing how to tell you, but it wasn’t what you thought, Strike.”

I open my eyes slowly and stare at her expectantly.

“I hadn’t been doing well for a few weeks. I couldn’t keep up with schoolwork, and I was having trouble eating. Around that time, my mom had been crazier than ever, so I just wrote it off as stress. Then I started feeling nauseous all the time and could barely open my eyes in the mornings from exhaustion. So I went to Dalton that day to talk about my suspicions, because I was so afraid.”

The thundering of my pulse is loud in my ears. I wait for her to finish but she closes her eyes, so I prompt her to continue. “What were you suspicious about, Rea? Say it!”

Her voice is barely audible, “I don’t know if I can.”

I remove her hand from my face. I can’t have her touching me. The disgust I feel for her right now is making it unbearable.

“SAY IT!” I shout and a look of fear flashes in her eyes.

“We were discussing the possibility of my being pregnant, and if I was, how I would tell you.”

“WHY? Why would you go to Dalton and not me, Rea, huh?” I can’t look at her right now, so I turn and bury my face in my hands.

“I was afraid, so I ran to my best friend for advice. I didn’t want to scare you away.”

I’m trying hard to restrain my anger before talking again. “Why would it have scared me away? You were with me. I loved you, unless you were fucking my cousin, too. Were you, Rea?” I turn to look at her. I can’t stop myself from crying. I don’t even attempt to hide it or wipe the evidence away. “Were you fucking Dalton, too?”

She’s crying so hard now that she’s a blubbering mess. Her eyes close and she shakes her head so subtly, that I can’t make out if she is answering my question or gathering her thoughts before she speaks.

“Were you, Rea?” I say in a whisper.

“No, Striker, I was only with you. I didn’t sleep with Dalton until we were married for almost two years. He married me, so I didn’t have to raise my son in a home with my crazy mother. He gave me another option.” She lifts her eyes and her sobbing has calmed.

“It doesn’t work out for me, Rea. What about Dylan?” Please don’t say it, Reagan. Please don’t tell me that was stolen from me, too. I’m not sure I can handle something like that.

“Take a good look at him, Striker. Haven’t you, in all these years, ever looked into his beautiful brown eyes and seen yourself in them? Dylan is yours, Striker.”

My hand rises to my chest, trying to relieve the searing pain that is constricting my heart. My throat feels thick, making it difficult to breathe. I’m getting hot from the pressure I feel building inside me. They were my best friends. How could they do this? I stare straight ahead, but I’m not seeing anything in the room. The clock on the wall is the only noise I hear, and the incessant ticking is causing my rage to amplify.

I’m finding it difficult to hold my anger back, and a loud growl rips past my constricted throat causing a burning pain. I stand from the couch and walk to the mantle, grabbing a picture frame so I can take a good look. I stare at the face of a little boy that does share my eyes. He is my only living immediate family. I have no one else but Dalton and his parents, and they kept him from me. My grip tightens on the frame, causing the glass to crack.

I’m seething as I turn to look toward Reagan, my chest rising and falling in rapid succession. She won’t even look at me, her face is buried in her hands and her shoulders are bouncing as she cries.

“You’re fucking crying? You were able to raise our son, you didn’t have to stand by and watch your best friend have that honor. How could you do this? You didn’t just do this to me either, Reagan, you did this to Dylan, too!”

Her face stays buried in her petite hands, as if she is trying to block out this entire situation, but I won’t let her. She needs to face me and the lies she told. I walk over to her with clenched fist and kneel on the floor, so we are at eye level with one another.

“Look at me, Reagan,” I say through clenched teeth and pry her hands away from her face. Her head is still hung low and her eyes, shut tight. “You were staying away from me when I first got here because you didn’t want me to find out, did you?”

Her head nods and I get the sudden urge to grab her hair and make her look at me, but even now, I could never hurt her. She has broken me completely at this point, there’s nothing left for her to destroy. Had I known that the day I ran into her in the woods would have ended like this, I would have walked away, leaving her on the ground and never looked back.

“What? You don’t want to face the pain you caused. Go ahead and cut me the fuck out again. Go ahead and act like the pain you caused me is irrelevant. Isn’t that how you work? I left you hurt back then, I know, but you never thought that I was hurt, too? Your feelings are, obviously, all that matter, so you keep the fact that Dylan is my son from me for over ten years.”

Finally she lowers her hands and lifts her eyes to meet mine. We search each other’s for a moment, both trying to find some kind of an answer or reason for the pain we both feel. The guilt and regret are pouring out of her, but it doesn’t help to still the anger boiling inside of me. I wish there was something that she could say to help me understand her reasoning for this, but there is never a reason to keep someone’s child from them.