Taking the Fall (9 page)

When he left all those years ago, he admitted that he left to hide from the pain of his planned life’s collapse. He was angry. God, he was so angry, and he succumbed to an age-old weakness. Physical release to heal emotional wounds. Allison was the messenger to the deadly blow he took, but she also was a willing female. He thought back to all the ways he took Allison the first couple of days he knew her. As if every explosion from his groin could chip away at the deluded image of perfection he had tattooed over his heart. He knew then that it wasn’t fair to Allison that he was using her for his own gain, but at the same time, he was not strong enough to push her away, either. She was willing so he took. He sought and she gave. Passing the time he had planned to spend with Molly.

He should have known better than to jump feet first into a relationship with Allison, but some plans couldn’t be broke. He wasn’t looking to sow his wild oats. He wasn’t looking to bang a different girl every day of the week. Truth was he wanted to be ‘the one’ to someone. He wanted to be half of a whole. It just was a cock-gripper, only not who he had waited so long for.

He knew he was a bastard to continue seeing Allison for the sole purpose of physical release, but he still couldn’t bring himself to stop, either. Soon, the physical part of their relationship began to wane and the reality that their sad relationship barely existed finally sunk in.

Thankfully, college then med school filled in most of his time. They still went through the motions of being together, but it had more come to be a physical coupling schedule than anything else. Allison seemed okay with it, so why rock the boat.

Asshole 101, please meet your newest student.

Missing his family but unable to bring himself to return home often, he only made the exception when he was the best man in Gage’s wedding to his first wife, Krista. The entire time he was home, he made it a point not to inquire about Molly but that didn’t mean his mother wasn’t happy to fill him in on the happenings of her beloved town.

It was the night before Gage was due to say his vows. Most of the guests, the groom and bride-to-be, and all of Hunter’s siblings were continuing the pre-wedding joy with dinner at
Molly’s
and a close down of the place to continue to celebrate. Needless to say, Hunter made a point to refrain from joining, by using the intensity of his med school schedule to finally take the opportunity to relax. His mother stated she still had a lot to do before tomorrow’s festivities so she also stayed behind at the house.

“Do you want me to make you something?” Bianca Dennison asked in her I’m-gonna-make-you-something-regardless-of-what-you-say way.

“No, Mom, I’m good. Just enjoying the quiet.”

“I imagine you don’t get much quiet with your constant studies and rounds at the hospital,” she exclaimed as she began making a grilled cheese sandwich.

“True. I know I’m making the right decision in med school. I love helping people, Mom. Healing a physical wound is a lot easier than healing an emotional one,” Hunter said, unable to keep the double meaning from his words.

“So, I guess you are trying to tell me that you will not be going into the psychiatric specialty.”

Hunter smiled and tapped his index finger against the tip of his nose multiple times.

Returning the smile that was identical to her own, she continued, “Your father and I have no doubt you are doing what is right. We couldn’t be prouder of your decision to study at Boston University.”

Bianca’s children couldn’t help but feel an undying love for their mother. She always seemed to know what they needed and when they needed it.

This moment in time was no less.

“Oh, I ran into Florence Sowards earlier this week. She had some very exciting news. She was just bursting with news she is about to become a grandmother.”

Hunter stopped the action of bringing a stolen piece of cheese to his lips at her words.

For Florence to be an expectant grandmother could only mean one thing; Molly was pregnant.

The knowledge hurt. Regardless of the fact it had been two years since the night of the bonfire when his dreams and closest held ambition had gone up in flames, it didn’t make the knowledge of how far off course life had truly gone any easier to hear.

“I did tell you that she had married Bob Jenson last spring, right?” Bianca flipped the sizzling butter coated bread on the griddle. She grabbed a couple of plates from the cabinet to her right without looking at her son’s face. “I really was surprised when they announced their engagement. But after she came back to town after her first semester down in Boston when she transferred up to UNH, I guess things just developed between her and Reed’s old classmate. She never seemed overly happy about it, but you know Molly. She would have had a smile on her face and asked you about your day even if she was standing in ankle deep shit.”

The fact that Bianca cursed, which was something she rarely did, didn’t faze Hunter as much as the information she was giving.

If only you knew, Mom.
Molly had already had her fun and was probably just ready to hide her shame in a convenient marriage.

Still with all her attention on the sizzling sandwiches, she continued, “You know between you and me, Hunter, I had always hoped Molly and Reed would get together. They had gone all through school together and I know they ran in the same social circle. But oh well, I guess a mom can’t control every part of her kids’ life.”

His mother was completely unaware of the sudden change in direction of her present son’s emotions.

The thought of Reed ever thinking, let alone touching, Molly in any way had bile rising in his throat.

When Hunter lived in his pre-awareness of Molly’s true character, he knew he was walking a thin line considering Reed and Molly’s friendship. He lost track of how many times he had blatantly come out and asked Reed what he thought about the girls in his class, including the ones he considered good friends. Each time he asked, he always held his breath that this would not be the time he would come back and declare an affection toward a certain little blonde.

Toward graduation, Reed began to ask why Hunter was always asking about who he had his eye on, but Hunter always shook it off as an inquisitive older brother. Reed would be an ass and state that Gage, the oldest, could have given two shits less who Reed had in his sights, so Hunter tended to say that was why he was the more caring brother. He knew Reed never believed him, but considering the alternative of telling him the true reason why his curiosity always played a factor, he would take what he could.

Bianca had turned and now placed the plated sandwich in front of her son, who didn’t want to eat his favorite childhood sandwich.

She took the opposite stool at the counter before taking a bite of her own sandwich. When Hunter’s remained untouched after her first few bites, she snapped her manicured fingers in front of him to snap him out of his trance.

“Something wrong, kiddo?”

“Uh, no. Thanks, Mom, for the sandwich, but I guess I’m just more tired than I had originally thought. I’m going to head up to bed and get some rest before the big day tomorrow.” He stood and kissed his mother’s cheek.

“Are you sure you won’t stay home for a couple of days? There won’t be so many guests after tomorrow, and you haven’t been home in so long. I believe you told me that you don’t have class until Tuesday afternoon. That would give you a couple more days at least.”

With firmness he never used in front of his mother, he said clearly, “No, after Gage and Krista leave the reception, I will be heading back to Boston. I plan to be back in my apartment tomorrow night.”

Feeling bad for the pain he saw in his mother’s face, he gave her another kiss, this time atop her head, before telling her that he loved her and heading out of the kitchen and up the stairs to his old room.

He needed to get out of that town and away from all the memories of how stupid he had been.

Pulling his Jeep into his driveway brought him out of his memory led spiral. He got out and headed inside.

He climbed the stairs en route to his room, when he passed the other bedroom. A bedroom that remained dark and empty too often for Hunter’s happiness.

This overly purple, stuffed animal filled, ruffled, and laced concocted room belonged to his beautiful daughter, Leah. The child he shared with Allison. As he leaned against the white doorframe, he looked at the empty room and thought, of all the unplanned ways his life had gone, the best thing to come out of it was Leah.

She was the apple of his eye and everything to his heart.

After Hunter had returned to Boston with the unwanted knowledge that Molly’s life really had gone in the opposite direction than he, he had a newfound determination to make his and Allison’s relationship work.

Unfortunately, it was easier said than done. Between his commitment to his studies, the odd jobs he could work around his schedule, and all the demands of first year of med school put on him, it left him little time to devote to romance. But that didn’t mean he didn’t try. However, Allison had grown bored with the lack of attention and had moved on. It was then he had decided to put any prospects of romance out of his mind and just focus on his studies.

Three years had passed and he was about to graduate before heading into his internship at Mass General Hospital, a highly coveted intern program, when Allison resurfaced. They had gone to dinner, a celebratory occasion, which included an unending supply of champagne that she had insisted on to mark his impending accomplishments. When the dessert had been consumed and the bottles of bubbly had run dry, they fell in a tangle of limbs into her apartment.

Hunter had awoken the next morning with an enormous sized hangover and a note left on the bedside table stating she wouldn’t be back until later that evening and that she would call him in a few days.

A few days had passed and the call never came. Not that he didn’t know how to reach her either, but Hunter had decided that it was best to just perhaps close the book on Allison as well. Whether she knew it or not, he would forever link her with the devastation of what occurred with Molly.

It was two months later when Allison knocked on his door.

She was pregnant with his child.

And no matter what reality was his, the planned or the unplanned, everything was about to change.

He was about to become a father.

Hunter made Allison and the baby a priority. Rearranging an already chaotic schedule, he was able to join Allison for every prenatal appointment. Hunter wanted to do right by Allison, but things didn’t seem to work out that way.

By the time Leah was about to turn one, Allison had told him that she had met Garrett Lloyd. Three months later, Allison had a four-karat diamond on her left hand, and she told Hunter that she and Leah were leaving Boston and moving to Burlington, Vermont.

Hunter thought he knew pain, but nothing compared to the agony of Allison telling him that she was taking their child away from him.

Almost three and a half hours away, to be exact.

He had just started his residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, which was one of the busiest trauma centers in the country and completely elite in the prospect of residency openings. It was what he’d worked so hard to achieve and now he had a reason to despise it.

He had just come off a thirty-six hour shift after seeing more in one night than any doctor should ever see, as he stood in the cold, on the sidewalk of Garrett Lloyd’s Brownstone in Cambridge.

“You can’t take my daughter away from me like this, Allison! Did you ever even think how I would feel about this?”
He remembered the screaming match he had with Allison as he watched the moving truck getting ready to move out.

There stood Allison, in her full-length fur coat with designer glasses and bag, telling him that he would just have to deal with it. All the while, Leah’s new nanny took a crying Leah to the waiting car, not even letting Hunter have a moment alone to say goodbye to his daughter.

“Don’t do this Allison, please!”

“Hunter,” she feigned patience, “this is out of my hands. Garrett made Senior Partner at his law firm. He was given the great opportunity of opening his own office in Burlington and who am I to stand in his way? He didn’t even have time to wait for the house to be packed up; he had to be there yesterday.”

“I don’t give a shit what he does. His transfer has nothing to do with you taking my daughter out of this city!”

Now Allison came at him with her claws out. “First of all, it isn’t a transfer, it is his own office. Secondly, I will take my daughter anywhere I see fit. I’m the one who is her full-time caregiver, while you play at being doctor!”

“Playing? I’m working my ass off to provide for Leah!”

“Your miniscule income is nothing compared to what I can give her.”

“You mean what Garrett’s money can give her.”

She seethed with anger but then she had the smallest smile draw on her face. Making a dramatic project of putting her six hundred dollar leather gloves on, she retorted, “I let you play dad when you can squeeze her in. So, don’t give me the poor Hunter card because it won’t work.” She walked past him to where the waiting car was, and before climbing in and closing the door on him and their conversation, she finished with nothing but malice. “Don’t push this issue, Hunter. It will not end pretty for you. And remember, I’m the one married to a lawyer, so don’t think I am anything but sure how completely within my rights I am, considering you never insisted or signed a formal custody agreement.”

He listened as Leah wailed in her car seat as they pulled away from the curb and away from him.