4. Rowan
4
ROWAN
Y ou idiot. What did you think was going to happen?
A bitter laugh leaked out of me as I covered my mouth with my hand. Tears dripped onto it, and now that I was alone in the back seat of a Ford Focus, I could let them flow. It would hardly be the first time I’d cried in the back of a car.
Damn him.
Damn me too.
What did I expect? For him to have this big moment where he cleared everything up? All my questions, confusion, and betrayal I wrestled with in those ugly early days. Lying alone in a hospital bed, seeing everything I had worked and hoped for falling to pieces.
The doctor’s voice was soft, careful, but it felt like it was coming from underwater, muffled by the pounding in my ears. “The damage was extensive,” he said, and each word seemed to sink deeper into my chest. but we’re going to do everything we can to minimize the scarring.” I swallowed hard, my throat suddenly dry, but the lump there wouldn’t go away.
My fingers clenched the thin hospital blanket, knuckles going white as I tried to focus on anything but the word ‘scarring.’ His voice blurred into the hum of the machines beside me, but that one word echoed, bouncing around in my mind. Scarring. My stomach twisted painfully.
I blinked, eyes darting around the sterile room. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. “What am I doing here?” I croaked out, my voice barely recognizable. “Who’s paying for all this?” Panic flared in my chest, my pulse quickening. I couldn’t afford this. My family couldn’t afford this. “I don’t have a lot of money, and neither do my parents.”
The doctor’s hand landed gently on mine, his touch warm, but it didn’t stop the cold creeping up my spine. “Don’t you worry about that,” he said, his smile kind but distant, like he knew something I didn’t. “It’s all been taken care of. All you need to concern yourself with now is recovering.”
It was actually sad how long it took me to figure things out. Obviously, Spencer was behind the transfer. He had paid for my surgeries without saying a word, without explaining himself, and definitely without an apology. Maybe to him, that was his apology. Maybe he expected me to be grateful for the money and not expect anything else.
I wiped away my lingering tears, clenching my jaw tight. Fuck this. I had cried more than enough. And I had made it through with no help from him but his money.
I couldn’t pretend the money didn’t help—it was the only reason I managed to build my career. What had felt so much like the end of the world at that time now looked a lot like a blessing more than a decade after the fact.
There were no blessings in sight when I was in that hospital bed, though. There was nothing but fear and dread and horror. “Will you be able to fix me? All the way, I mean? Will you be able to make it so nothing shows?” My heart ached now when I remembered whispering those words, tearful and desperate.
Another thing I appreciated about the doctor—he didn’t bullshit me. “We’re going to do our best,” he murmured, but I heard the truth in his voice. “The damage was fairly extensive. A broken nose and cheekbone, a partly severed ear, and a contusion to your scalp and temple. We’ll need to wait for the worst of the swelling to go down before we can accurately assess and come up with a game plan for surgery.”
I couldn’t ask the real question that sat on my chest like a lead weight. He wouldn’t have an answer, after all. He couldn’t see into the future.
Will I ever work again? Will I be a star?
I released a deep breath, watching the world pass outside the window. I knew at the time. In my heart, I knew damn well. There wouldn’t be any more acting, at least not the kind where I showed my face. There would be no more dreams of premiers, splashy magazine layouts, or fans screaming my name as I walked a red carpet. I wouldn’t be Hollywood’s next ‘It Girl.’ If anything, it would be a cautionary tale of why you don’t get into a sports car with an irresponsible little shithead who never had to take life seriously or face the consequences of anything he’s done.
He couldn’t even apologize. That filthy, pathetic little coward. Was I under some level of delusion while we were together? I must have been. I couldn’t think of another reason why I would fall for his shit.
At least, that’s what I wanted to tell myself years later with the benefit of time and wisdom. It was easier to pretend I forgot what it was about him that made him irresistible, but that’s all it was. Pretend.
I wasn’t being fair to the girl I used to be, the one who passed up on a full scholarship in favor of trying to make it work in Hollywood. “Three years,” I told Mom and Dad as a fresh-faced, hopelessly starstruck kid. “Just give me three years. If I can’t make it work, I’ll find a way to get through school without the scholarship. But I know I can do this. I know I can build a career out there.”
I had been on my way to doing it too. It was so close I could almost taste it. Fame was just beyond my reach. Another part or two, a little more networking, and I would’ve had my big break. Or so I’d told myself for a long time after the accident.
That belief had festered in my soul, turning hard and bitter, eating a hole for me in the days immediately following the crash. When I first woke up to find nothing but excruciating pain gripping my head and face, I knew deep in my heart I was finished. That it was all over before it ever really began. That I would never see Spencer again.
I knew it even as that lawyer showed up with his damn contract and all his thinly-veiled threats about what would happen if I broke the agreement and reached out to the man who’d put me in the hospital. Who cared about promising never to contact him again when I already knew Spencer would never come back because what he had liked best about me was ruined?
Ruined by him.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t walked straight into my own destruction.
Well, I finally had closure. At least I could say that much for myself by the time the car exited the freeway and took the familiar route home. Funny how I couldn’t think of it any other way, even if I hadn’t lived here full-time in ages. This was the place that immediately came to mind when I thought of home. Not the apartment I’d been leasing for three years to be closer to the office and business-related events, but the little house in the valley where I had grown up and where everything that really mattered lived.
I felt stronger and more sure of myself as I climbed out of the car, thanking the driver. The only thing worth regretting about the evening was that I didn’t get to watch Spencer’s reaction as I left. Otherwise, I got the last word, and it was obvious he was thrown by my attitude. He deserved so much worse for throwing money at me and disappearing.
I made sure to leave my driver a generous tip, then traveled the walkway, which Mom always kept neat and free of weeds that might otherwise choke the cheerful little flowers she tended within an inch of their lives. The lights were on inside the house, and I heard the television as I stepped up to the front door, using my key to unlock it.
“I’m home,” I announced with a weary sigh as I walked into the living room. It would never make the cover of a decorating magazine, but the sight of overstuffed furniture and framed photos clogging up the walls brought peace to my soul. Photos of me through the years—the star of the high school shows, local productions, even one of me on the set of my first commercial. No parents were ever prouder, even if the commercial was for antiperspirants.
Something else caught my attention and held it. After eyeing the MacBook and texts lying open on the coffee table, I lifted my head at the sound of Mom’s approach from the kitchen.
“What are you doing here?“ she asked, confused but smiling. “We weren’t expecting you tonight.”
“I missed my girl.” Again, I looked at the classwork on the table. “Are we studying in front of the TV now?”
“She was doing a group project on Zoom, and I wanted her out here so I could listen in on the conversation while I cleaned the kitchen,” she explained, drying her hands on a flowered dish towel. “I didn’t recognize the car that dropped you off. Who was that?”
Eventually, my mother would have to get used to the idea of me being a grown woman. “An Uber,” I replied. “I left the car at the office tonight. I wound up meeting someone for a drink and thought it would be safer not to drive.”
That was as much as I would tell her. Not that she would recognize his name—I had never used it, not once. Even while we were dating, back when I entertained fantasies of a life in the spotlight and a future with Spencer, a playboy whose family money meant he lived in a completely different world. I had been so afraid of telling them about him. It all seemed so big and fraught with complications, and that was back before he ended my lifelong aspirations. The sort that left a parent paying for acting and dance lessons, not to mention forcing them to accept the idea that their little girl wasn’t going to take the typical path through life. How many people got a full scholarship and turned it down in favor of chasing a dream?
Her furrowed brow smoothed, and then she chuckled lightly. “Of course. My responsible girl.”
I wasn’t always so responsible, was I? Now, I wished I had told her his name back then so I could now tell her how he had insulted me at the bar, treating me like some second-class citizen, a mouth he needed to shut so I didn’t make things difficult for him. Poor baby. Was this the first difficulty he had ever come up against?
“Where is she?” I asked, sliding out of my stilettos with a grateful sigh. What a shame they made my legs look so good, considering they were torture devices.
“She went up to take a shower.” Mom returned to the kitchen, whistling softly. The sound followed me up the stairs, where I passed two closed bedroom doors and knocked on the last one at the end of the hall—my childhood room. Light streamed out from under the door, along with a telltale sound that left me smirking as I knocked louder.
“Just a second!” The sound of the video game cut out, then I heard, “Come in.”
I had to remind myself to fix my face as I slowly opened the door. Hannah was sitting cross-legged on the bed, her blonde hair hanging wet and loose around her face. She’d chosen one of my old school T-shirts to wear to bed, making her ten-year-old body look even smaller in comparison. There was a book open in her lap and everything. She was working hard to sell the lie that she’d been reading rather than playing a game.
“Hey, there,” I murmured with a smile. “Did you have a good day?”
“Mom!” She got up on her knees, arms outstretched, and I wasted no time wrapping mine around her. My heart calmed now that I had her close to me. I buried my nose in her clean and sweet-smelling hair. When I closed my eyes, I almost remembered her delicious newborn scent. I lost track of the many hours I’d spent soaking in that glorious sweetness. If only I could have bottled it.
She was clinging to me a little tighter than usual, worrying me as I stroked her hair. “So, how did it go at school today?” I asked, kissing her forehead and sitting on the bed. She joined me, and I absently picked up the brush from her dresser and began working on her hair.
With a grunt, she announced, “Jason Gonzalez is such a dick.”
“Language,” I warned, fighting back a grin. It was still a challenge, hiding my amusement whenever she came out with something like that—exactly the sort of thing I would’ve said if I were dealing with a dick like Jason.
“Sorry. Jerk,” she amended with another grunt. “He wouldn’t stop making noises during my presentation in World History. He kept trying to distract me. I lost my place right in the middle of Archduke Ferdinand’s assassination.”
“Ouch,” I murmured, gently brushing out a few tangles.
“But I got through it.” The pride in her voice stirred pride in my chest. My fierce little girl.
“I know you did because that’s who you are. You don’t let anybody with a big mouth push you around.” We had that in common. I had faced a bigmouth bully today.
“Aunt Ree was here for dinner but left before helping Grandmom with the dishes. She said she had something to do tonight.”
“I’m glad she did, though I’m sorry I missed her. I’ll have to give her a call.” Rhiannon had only moved out for good a few years ago, around the time I leased my apartment. She said Hannah didn’t need her anymore. I’d disagreed, but at the same time, she deserved a life of her own. I hated to think of her using my daughter as a reason for holding herself back.
“I think she works too much,” my wise, all-seeing daughter decided. “Even more than you.” I couldn’t disagree, though Rhiannon certainly made enough money to compensate for the time she spent as part of a team of programmers.
“You don’t miss anything, do you?” I asked, peppering kisses along her ear and cheek.
“I’m not some dumb kid,“ she reminded me. “I notice things. So what did you do tonight before you came over?”
She would have to go and ask me that, wouldn’t she? Did she notice the way the question froze me for a second as I got hold of myself?
I was having a drink with your father. Nope. That would never happen. She would never know him, and not only because it would be too much of a shock after all these years growing up without a dad. It had taken ages to get to the point where she stopped asking about him. Eventually, she had gotten used to the idea of her grandfather being the closest thing to a dad she would have—unless I got married, which wasn’t looking likely.
I was fine the way I was and didn’t need anything else. I had my baby. I had parents who had taken so much on their shoulders to make sure I could make the best of what extended family members used to call The Tragedy —the tragedy of my accident and giving up on my dreams.
“Catching up with an old friend,” I told her, which was as close to the truth as I dared to venture. Bringing him into our lives would mean leaving her open to the world he’d grown up in and still inhabited. A world where other people were nothing more than amusements, something to enjoy, use up, and discard when the good times were over, and where he could destroy my dreams and walk away from his responsibilities, including the little girl whose hair I finished brushing out. He hadn’t asked about her or whether there was a child in the world with an impish smile so much like his. No doubt, he assumed I ended the pregnancy after the accident, and he deserted me. Let him call me selfish, but I didn’t want him anywhere near her.
“Want me to braid your hair?” I asked. She deserved for me to be present with her, in the moment, not wallowing in past bitterness.
“Sure. It will be wavy in the morning.” She handed me a hair tie from a little bowl on her dresser, and I got to work. What a relief she was still young enough that it was easy to distract her.
“Do you want to come back here tomorrow after school, or do you want me to send an Uber to school that will take you to the apartment?” One day, she would live with me full time. I could hardly wait until the day came. To feel like a real family, just the two of us. For now, it made more sense for her to stay here during the week to maintain a sense of continuity without requiring a long ride to and from school, not to mention my schedule, which was unpredictable, to say the least.
I couldn’t guarantee I would be home for her when she needed me.
It meant having a deadline of sorts. By the time she left the eighth grade and was ready to start high school, I needed to have my shit together. I needed a stronger client list and a staff to handle things so I could take a step back and make myself available to my daughter.
For now, we were together on the weekends, back at my apartment, where I had set up a bedroom for her, which resembled the one here for the sake of familiarity. If anybody might replicate it, it was me since I had stared at the delicately flowered wallpaper and ruffled white curtains for years. One day, she would decorate it on her own when it was her full-time home.
“How late are you staying?” She let out a soft yawn that she tried like hell to cover up. My heart swelled, knowing she was only trying to cover up her sleepiness in hopes of spending more time together.
“I was thinking about staying the night, if that would be okay with you. If you wouldn’t mind sharing the bed.”
Her head snapped around, eyes sparkling. “Really? What about work tomorrow?”
“I don’t have any meetings until ten o’clock, so that gives me plenty of time to go to the apartment and get dressed and everything. What do you think? Can we have a little sleepover tonight?”
“Sure.” She hopped off the bed, rushing around to pull things from the dresser. “There’s lots of stuff in here for you to wear. But oh, I didn’t clean up my stuff downstairs yet.”
“Why don’t you go down and do that, then say good night to Grandmom and Grandpa while I get changed?” The question was barely out of my mouth, and she was scampering from the room. On the way down the stairs, she announced to Mom that I was spending the night.
Mom had asked why I came here tonight instead of going home like I normally would have. This was why. I had to be with my baby after seeing him. I had to take what was mine and cling to it, hold it close, and remind myself what really mattered. Spencer had taken so much away from me, but he had given me Hannah. When I was too tired to keep going, every time I wanted to give up and close the books and say to hell with it, all it ever took was the thought of my little girl.
I was lucky. There were no illusions, now or back then. As I got undressed and pulled on a soft, much-loved T-shirt and shorts, I offered a silent prayer of thanks to the universe for giving me parents who hadn’t said I told you so , hadn’t chastised me, or worse, for getting pregnant. Always, they wanted to know what they could do to help. What would make my life easier. It had meant moving home, living here during school, with the folks and Rhiannon taking care of Hannah when I couldn’t.
I had it better than so many others could dream of, and I would not let Spencer take that away from me. I wouldn’t let him take Hannah and turn her into the sort of spoiled, self-centered person he was. The fucker had never apologized, never took responsibility for crashing that car.
What a shame for him because it meant losing out on a hell of a kid. Somebody he might have been proud of. Somebody who had his eyes and a wicked intelligence she made sure nobody ever forgot about.
“All set!” Hannah announced as I finished washing my face in the bathroom sink. “Can we put on a movie? If we keep the volume down real low so it won’t keep me up?”
“Only if you make me a promise.” I finished drying my face, glancing at her in the mirror when she stood behind me. “From now on, no sneaking off to your room to play video games until you’ve cleaned up after yourself downstairs. Deal?”
“Deal,” she mumbled, chewing her lip. “Sorry. I was waiting all day to play.”
“I get it.” I tugged her braid on the way down the hall, savoring her giggles. There would come a day when she wouldn’t be so eager to spend time with me. I needed to take in as much of it as I could while I had the chance.
It took her no time to fall asleep, regardless of how excited she was to have a sleepover. She left me lying awake, staring at the television without following the movie she chose, remembering the man who’d helped create her and how thoroughly he had crushed my heart.