Chapter 15
Holly – A Week Later
I sigh as I wipe my hair from my face and sit back up, resting my butt on my heels, while the kids giggle from the living area.
I smile, and contentment washes over me like it always does when I hear them, despite my cleaning inside the washing machine.
Who would have thought that I’d not only fall in love with a student’s parent but also claim said student as my own?
Not me, that is for sure. I had a vision of what my future held: my daughter and my job, nothing else.
I only trusted my cousin because after your first boyfriend turns into a crazy cheat and your own parents disown you when you need them the most, trust doesn’t come easy.
I haven’t even heard from them, not one phone call, but then in comes this big badass biker’s son who knew what he wanted and that was his dad and I together, who for months refused to meet me until he was set up by said son.
Alex told me after our second date, only to steal my heart and my daughter’s.
Alex ebbed his way under my skin, buried himself deep inside me, and the thought of ever losing him, god, it makes me feel sick.
I’m in love with him, and that is one hell of a scary feeling to have when I struggle trusting people, and I’m petrified he’s going to hurt me, that I’m going to lose him, because right now, I know without a doubt, I wouldn’t be able to survive that kind of heartbreak.
The man has dug his way into my heart to the point I miss him every single day when he isn’t in my presence and he is all I see when he’s around.
I’ve become reliant on him which I don’t really know is healthy, especially when I haven’t managed to explain my family dynamics, explain about Adam. I haven’t let him all the way in and I know I’m going to have to, especially when I’m eighty percent sure the man is slowly moving me into his home.
Half my stuff is at his that I didn’t take over and nearly all of Lyra’s things, including her clothes are in a room he classed as hers whenever she stayed, though right now that isn’t a bad thing.
I eye the chocolate sauce and whipped cream still staining the drum of my washing machine, and I groan, throwing my head back with frustration.
Damn Matty!
I went to put a load on before continuing the housework, while it’s just the kids and me, only to find the machine completely full of the stuff, and honestly, I don’t know what he was thinking with this one.
Mess with my clothes like he did last week, sure, whatever, but the machine that he uses?
Doesn’t help that Alex thought it was funny when I spoke to him this morning after I found the machine this way because all it does is encourage my cousin.
I sigh, grabbing some more paper towels.
We’ve been doing these pranks for around two months now, since he tried getting me to buy him condoms, and I think we’re taking them too far, especially if the appliances are now being used for the war we’ve got going on, but I do know one thing: he’s definitely the brother I never wanted.
More giggles echo, and I can’t help the smile that appears despite the frustration I’m feeling against Matty, just as my phone rings and I eye it with suspicion.
Matty is at work, hiding from me like a pansy, knowing he took crap too far with this one. I mean seriously all I did was put glitter in his goddamn lube and this was his revenge.
I roll my eyes. Alex is on a run and mentioned this morning he won’t call until this afternoon but will try to message me when he can so who can be ringing me unless…
I sigh, thinking it is yet again Freya who, despite being warned by the cops, still tries to contact me.
I stand and grab my phone, ready to threaten to have her arrested because this crap is getting annoying as I look at the unknown number, then look towards the kitchen door ensuring the kids are occupied before looking back at the phone.
“Hello?” I answer curtly but get nothing back, and I look at the screen before putting the phone back to my ear, and I repeat, “Hello?” but with more confusion this time.
Normally she’d already be giving me a lecture about her mother.
I furrow my brows when I don’t get an answer and go to hang up, but instead I freeze as a deep voice chokes, “Holly?”
Everything in me seizes, my heart pounding, and a lump forms in the back of my throat while tears spring.
Oh crap, did I conjure him up?
“Holly, is that you?” he pleads, and a few tears fall as I stumble into the kitchen counter suddenly thinking I completely jinxed myself.
Oh my…
“Dad?” I whisper, and he chokes back a sob, and I squeeze my eyes tight as confusion fills me.
He said I was disowned when I kept Lyra, he said he didn’t have a daughter, my mama agreed…
My hand trembles, and the urge to hang up fills me just as I hear, “Philip, did you get a hold of her?” and I flinch at my mother’s hurt tone.
“Holly,” Dad whispers, not answering Mama all while I struggle to breathe, “Please, Holly, say something…”
“Philip,” my mother chokes just as Lyra calls, “Mama, can Caleb and I have a snack?” as she rushes into the kitchen, and my dad sucks in a breath, and I blink, then blink again as he chokes, “Who is Caleb?”
“My boyfriend’s son,” I reply numbly without thinking before clearing my throat and saying, “Yeah, sweetheart,” to my daughter who grins wide and says, “Thank you, Mama,” just as she grabs two apples off the side, then runs back into the living area, and I begin to shake, my mind not able to comprehend what is happening right now.
I haven’t heard from my parents in nearly eight years.
“You’re seeing someone? Mathew never mentioned you were seeing someone,” he whispers, and I flinch again.
I thought Uncle Mathew didn’t speak about me.
“She’s in a relationship with someone who has a child?” Mama gasps, and I shake my head at the disgust in her tone while Dad just ignores her and murmurs, “Does he make you happy?”
Anger surges through me as the urge to hang up grows stronger, my emotions warring between hurt and fury.
He doesn’t deserve to know if I’m happy, just like he has no right to call me after he disowned me, all because I wouldn’t abort my daughter.
She was innocent and has none of Adam's traits.
“Please, Holly, I need to know, does he make you happy?” Dad pleads, and I swallow hard.
“Yes,” I confirm, “he makes me and Lyra very happy.”
“Lyra…” Dad chokes, and I hear Mama gasp again, and I flinch as I hear her say, “She called her Lyra, after your aunt?”
I don’t know why they are so shocked. Despite the fact that my extended family all backed my parents, not wanting me to have Adam's baby, Aunt Lyra was always my unsung hero before she got dementia, and the only regret I have since leaving my hometown is leaving her.
She’s met Lyra twice, but the second time, she didn’t even know who I was, and after that, I was blocked by my mother after I tried to visit again and the manager explained what Mama had done.
So now, I don’t even know how Aunt Lyra is even doing, and I think I’ll always resent my mother for that, especially when she’s Dad's aunt, not hers.
Taking a shuddered breath, I ask, “Why did you call, Dad? The last time I spoke to you, you told me to pack my bags and watched as Mrs. Collins lost it, you stood back and allowed her to say nasty things…”
He sniffles, and a bad feeling pulls at the pit of my stomach.
I’ve never seen or heard my father cry before what…
“Aunt Lyra passed, sweetheart,” Dad chokes, stopping my thoughts, and while the urge to sob overtakes me, resentment hits hard at my parents.
“Her funeral is at St. Kale’s church in four days.
I’ve been trying to get a hold of you since she passed but your mama, she deleted your number and Mathew gave me the one he had but the last digit was wrong,” my dad continues to explain and I mentally shut down, “Please say you’ll come, Holly, it’s at eleven in the morning and-and, her lawyer needs to speak with you as well, she left you everything sweetheart. ”
I open my mouth to say, well, I don’t even know what I’m going to say, but I clamp it shut when I hear Mama mutter, “It should have been left to us.”
“Leslie!” my dad snaps and I shut down.
I blink, then blink again as my tears fall, and without a word to my father, I hang up the phone, my mind swirling, making me feel sick and dizzy, and the washing machine is completely forgotten.
My own mother deleted my number.
She wants the inheritance.
Aunt Lyra is dead.
***
An hour later, while the kids are playing outside, I sit at the breakfast bar with a cup of coffee, not really able to see anything, every memory of Aunt Lyra flashing through my mind.
She was my biggest cheerleader, always there when I needed her and now, because of my own mother, I didn’t get to see her before she died.
I don’t think I have ever hated my mother as much as I do right now, even after she disowned me.
I sniffle and wipe as away a stray tear as a knock on the door echoes, and I furrow my brows knowing it can’t be anyone for me.
Today isn’t going very well as it is, so it wouldn’t surprise me if it were Matty’s stalker girlfriend.
Sighing, I check outside the kitchen window to ensure the kids are alright as another knock echoes and I walk out of the kitchen and towards the front door before opening it, ready to tell the woman to have some dignity but instead my mouth parts as two police officers and Cheryl dressed similar as she was the last time I saw, stand before me.
“That is her officers, she’s the one who stole my son!” Cheryl accuses, and my eyes widen.
What the hell?
“Miss, you are under arrest for the accusations of kidnapping Caleb Lee. Please turn around,” the taller man says sternly, not actually reading the correct Miranda rights.
I choke, “You are not arresting me! I’m watching him until his dad gets back, that woman is crazy and you didn’t even read me the correct rights!”
Cheryl smirks before she cries, “Where is my son?! You kidnapped my son!”