Chapter 19 December 19th #6
“Time to go,” Dec says, collecting his sister and guiding her out. “You must be busy yourself,” he adds.
“Yes, yes, busy, busy, busy.” She shrugs him off and gives him a pointed look. “Blaine’s in the car. Stop being a grouch.” Then she flashes me another one of those wide smiles. “It was so lovely to meet you, Camryn.”
The door closes in the distance again, and every set of eyes, including mine, moves to the kitchen doorway as footsteps head this way. “Hello?” a man calls. “April?” A suited man appears, tall and unconventionally handsome.
With a child that’s bundled up in a bright blue coat with matching bobble hat and scarf sitting on his forearm. He’s four years old. I don’t even need to ask. He’s almost the exact same size Noah was. As cute too.
My stomach twists.
“Oh, hi,” the guy says when he sees me. “You must be . . . Camryn?”
I realise I’m staring at their child and rip my eyes away. I can’t fall apart every time I see a child around Noah’s age. I quickly go to him, holding out my hand. “Yes, Camryn.”
He gives my hand a firm shake. “And what’s your name?” I ask the little boy, forcing my smile.
“Albi!” he declares proudly.
Oh my heart. “That’s a real cute name.”
“My daddy chose it. Like his grandpa and my great grandpa.”
“Oh, so cool!” I laugh, smiling and backing off before I grab him and squeeze him half to death with the force of my cuddle. “He’s the cutest.” I take the glass on the counter, Dec’s glass, and drink his wine, feeling a flutter of panic. And judging by Dec’s pained face, he knows.
“I’m four!”
“I knew that.”
“How?” His little forehead furrows. “I didn’t tell you.”
“I just knew,” I say, feeling Dec’s worried gaze set on me.
Albi wriggles in Blaine’s hold, obviously trying to get down, but Blaine keeps hold of him, repositioning him higher on his forearm.
Dec looks so uncomfortable, and I feel terrible for that. I shake my head mildly at him, trying to silently tell him it’s okay, but his face. It tells me it’s not. “Dec never mentioned you have kids,” I go on.
April’s gaze darts to her brother’s. As does Blaine’s.
And a horrible icy chill glides down my spine, confirming it.
“They don’t,” Dec says quietly. “He’s—”
“Daddy!” Albi sings, giving Dec grabby hands. “Aunty April forgot my drink bottle!”
I gasp quietly. Daddy?
“Mine,” Dec murmurs. “He’s mine.”
For a moment, I’m completely lost. “Yours?” I ask over a little laugh.
“Okay, little fella.” Dec goes to Blaine and takes Albi, and then all eyes are on me as I stand before my audience like a fucking clueless idiot, my mind empty.
“He can’t be yours.” I look at Albi again and realise what I’ve just said is categorically incorrect.
He’s the absolute spitting image of Dec.
“Oh my God.” It’s said on a breath as I step back away from them.
“You would have told me,” I murmur. “If you had a little boy, you would have told me.” He’s told me he loves me. He’s told me I’m his girlfriend.
“I didn’t know how,” Dec murmurs, not coming closer. Keeping a safe distance.
I look at April and Blaine, as I struggle to breathe. I feel like a freakshow standing here. Being judged. Being pitied.
He has a little boy.
He has a four-year-old little boy.
And I can’t stop staring at him.
“Daddy.” Albi’s little hands land on Dec’s cheeks, forcing him to look at him. “Who is that lady?”
Dec smiles, and it’s so uncomfortable, as he takes both of Albi’s little hands in one of his and pulls them away from his face. “She’s a special friend.”
“Like Petal’s my special friend?”
“Do you love Petal?”
“Yes.”
“Then she’s like Petal,” Dec says, flicking cautious eyes my way. Then he visibly gathers himself and puts Albi on his tiny feet. “Why don’t you go find me my cufflinks?”
“But you’re already wearing cufflinks, Daddy,” Albi says, shoving up the sleeve of Dec’s jacket to reveal one.
“Ah, but I put on the wrong ones.”
Albi bends, getting up close and personal with the cufflink. “These are your important ones.”
“And I meant to put on my really important ones. Do you think you could help Daddy out and go fetch them for me?”
“Yes!” He zooms off, excited, and the moment the little bundle of energy has gone, the kitchen is even heavier, all attention on my spaced-out form.
I look between them all, adrenaline making me shake violently under their scrutinizing, sympathetic gazes. “I have to go,” I blurt, feeling a full-blown meltdown on the horizon. I absolutely can’t control it, and I certainly don’t want Dec or his sister and her husband to see it.
“Camryn,” Dec breathes urgently as I grab my purse and hurry past them.
“It was nice to meet you,” I say to April and Blaine over my shoulder, feeling the walls closing in on me.
“Camryn, wait.”
Why didn’t he tell me? I swing the door open and rush out in a haze of total fucking confusion.
I don’t know how I get down the steps without slipping and breaking my neck, but I make it to the street, and I don’t recall one step of the way.
I start to walk aimlessly. No coat. In my cream heels.
The cold hits me like a boulder, and I’m suddenly shaking like a leaf for different reasons—chilled to my bones—my feet sopping wet and like blocks of ice within just a few strides.
“Camryn!”
I turn around, but it’s slow and heavy, the temperature hampering me. I can’t hold on to my emotions anymore, and the tears pour out of me unstoppably. “You should have told me,” I murmur, making Dec skid to an abrupt stop a few paces away. “You should have fucking told me, Dec.”
He swallows, his handsome face crestfallen. “Camryn, please.”
“Just leave me alone.” I turn and walk away, the pain I’ve managed to handle all day swooping in and making up for it.
Agony.
Misery. My soaked, freezing feet give up at the end of the road, and I flag down a cab, struggling to open the door, my numb fingers failing me. “Shit.” I somehow manage to get in and somehow manage to give the driver my address through my chattering teeth.
“Let me crank up the heating for you,” the driver says, as we pass Dec standing on the street, his body turning as the cab drives past, following me with his eyes. I can’t look at him. My chest constricts. My head pounds. My throat is tight.
My momentary, temporary peace shattered spectacularly.
The drive is long and lonely. I bunch my fists, grit my teeth, and press my palms into my temples. Emotions seesaw inside, up and down, anger, sadness, stupidity.
But out in front?
Pain.
Am I hurting because I feel betrayed? Because I lost my little boy? Because what today is, and now what it’s become? All of the above?
How could he hide this from me? How can he declare his love and accept mine when he knows I don’t even know who he is?
Because you’re broken.
Because he was scared to break you even more.
I hit the leather seat by my thigh as the driver pulls up outside my building, and I jump out and struggle to the door, my hands still numb, every fragment of me stinging from the bite of the chill.
When I get into my apartment, I kick off my sodden heels, unzip my dress, and let it drop to the floor, leaving my clothes in a trail to my kitchen.
I open the fridge and pull out the orange wine, wandering through to my bathroom, setting it on the sink and turning the shower on, stepping under the spray, the water burning against my frozen skin.
My legs refuse to keep me upright anymore, and I fold to the tile floor.
My vision blurring and blending between two little boys.