Chapter 16 Sixteen Candles
sixteen candles
Preston Darling
The first thought in my mind when I wake is that Dolly’s gone. I open my eyes and sit up, fighting not to roar in pain at the dull blades that my ribs have become. I manage to keep it down to a few savage curses growled between clenched teeth.
“Oh, thank God you’re awake,” Dolly’s sweet voice says from behind me as she rushes out of the bathroom, a wet washcloth in one hand.
I sink back in relief, squeezing my eyes closed. She’s still here. The pain in my body doesn’t matter. It’ll heal. I’d never heal from losing her again.
She fusses over me, putting a cloth on my head and babbling on.
“I tried to call an ambulance, but Magnolia says the doctors in town won’t treat Darlings, and the next closest one…
I don’t even know where that is. Little Rock?
I’m so sorry, Preston. I didn’t know it was that bad. Is that even legal?”
“Probably not,” I say, jaw clenched and eyes closed as I try to breathe through the pain.
My head throbs every time I move, and my mouth feels like I sucked salty pennies until it burned away a hole in one cheek, but my ribs are the worst. “They’d treat us if we went there and demanded it.
But they’d pay for it later. I don’t want those doctors or nurses to lose their jobs. Or worse.”
“I’m so sorry,” she says again, caressing my cheek with the back of her fingers. “I didn’t mean to hit you. You have to believe me. You came out of nowhere, and the car slid on the gravel…”
“I’m fine.” I turn my face away, hating her to see me like this. Weak. Lying in bed like an invalid, like I did after the Dolce attack. It’s pathetic, like Dad said that day. No woman wants a man like that.
I should be strong, should be able to walk it off.
She wasn’t even going that fast. I’m still breathing fine, if I ignore the lancing pain in my ribs every time I inhale.
I move my tongue around my mouth, poking at the jagged tear in the inside of my cheek.
It doesn’t go through, so no stitches will be required there, and if that’s where the blood is coming from, that means I didn’t puncture a lung.
“Mrs. Potter said there’s a doctor in town who will make house calls to y’all,” Dolly says. “She went to find the number.”
“I don’t need Dr. Swift,” I grit out, forcing myself to sit up past the gut-punch of pain that has my head spinning. “I’m not a pussy who can’t take a little pain.”
“You got hit by a car,” she says, resting a hand on my shoulder. “At least let him take a look at you before you move around too much. Please, Preston. For me? I feel terrible.”
I sigh and run my hand through my hair. “Fine.”
She presses at my shoulder, and I tense, but finally I lay back on the pillows. She dabs at my cheek, the cloth coming away red. “You’re going to have a nasty bruise here,” she says. “A little scrape, too. You could probably sue the pants off me for this.”
“Right,” I mutter. “Because I’m going to call the cops.”
“You could just let me go,” she says. “Then you wouldn’t be doing anything illegal.”
“Never,” I snap, turning my face and pushing her washcloth away.
“Preston…” she says, sitting back and staring up at me. “When are you going to realize I’ll never be happy here? I just hit you with a car. This is my fault, and I know that, but if I hadn’t been so desperate to leave…”
“If you want to leave so bad, you should have kept driving,” I growl, staring at the white lace curtain. “Because I’m not letting you go until I’m dead.”
Somehow, even though I gave her everything she could ever want, right down to the curtains in the windows, it wasn’t enough. I remember her saying something like that about Devlin. She gave him every part of herself, but he still didn’t stay.
We’re repeating the same pattern, except I refuse to accept reality the way she did, refuse to face the truth and gather the strength to let her go.
She let him go, and he didn’t come back. He found someone he could love the way he never loved her, someone who loved him back. He got married, had kids, and found happiness.
If I do the same, could I live with that?
Could I live with knowing it will never happen, that it’s over for good?
Could I live with the alternative, with knowing I kept her from that?
That I’m the reason she’s not happy, the reason she never found the love she wanted?
Can I live with being the man who makes her cry in silent shame in her closet, with only her son’s ears to witness through the wall each night?
I close my eyes and do the hardest thing, the thing my father would say means I’m not a man. Instead of holding on until she surrenders and admits defeat, instead of winning, conquering my wife, I let go.
“If you want to kill me, then kill me,” I say woodenly. “I’m injured. I’m at your fucking mercy, Dolly. You can even take the car, whichever one you want. Consider it recompense.”
“What?” she whispers.
I can’t look at her. I don’t want to see what I’m losing, to see if she hates me enough to do it. She was strong enough to do this with Devlin, to walk away from the man she loved, the only man she’s ever loved.
I was brave like her for just long enough to put it all out there and give it everything I had. But I’m not strong enough to give up what doesn’t want to be had.
“Go on,” I say, my voice uninflected, unemotional. The time for that is past. It’s time to think rationally. “Pull the plug, Dolly. It’ll be easy to tell the doctor I didn’t make it. Just tell him it was an accident. No one will blame you. You were escaping your kidnapper, after all.”
“I would never,” she says, and I hear tears in her voice.
“If you leave, you might as well kill me, because it’s the same thing to me.”
“Just let us go,” she says quietly, laying a hand on her belly. “If you can’t do it for yourself, or for me… Do it for her.”
I close my eyes and press my lips together, forcing myself not to turn, to take her in my arms the way I want to, to hold her while she cries.
This is the final test, the worst one yet.
To know I’m hurting her, and to keep going, anyway.
It will be better once I’ve cut myself away from her life, like a gangrenous limb.
A clean cut is best. Otherwise, I’ll just keep hurting her, poisoning her slowly, ruining the rest of her life.
“Whatever you do, I have one request,” I say.
“What?”
“Don’t get rid of the baby.”
“What are you saying?”
“If you have to leave for her, I’ll try to leave you alone.
The kid, though… I’ll be a father to them in whatever way you’ll allow.
If you want me to raise them, I’ll take full responsibility.
This was my choice, not yours. You shouldn’t have this burden for the rest of your life if you’re not ready for it or don’t want it. ”
“Preston,” she says, taking my hand. “I’m not going to give away my kid.”
I nod, my chest aching with a cold hollowness. “I understand. I won’t interfere if that’s what you want, what you think is best for them. You can raise them as you see fit. I know you’ll be a good mother.”
“You’re really letting me go?” she whispers. “Is this what you want?”
“Of course it’s not what I fucking want,” I say. “But I can’t stop you. I can’t even fucking move right now.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, wiping at her face. “I never meant to hurt you.”
“I didn’t either,” I say quietly. “You deserve to be happy. She deserves it. If I’d known you were this fucking miserable having to see my face every day… I should have fucking seen it.”
“I’m not.”
“If you have to leave to be happy, then leave. I’ll be as involved with our child as you want. But you won’t have to worry about anything ever again, even if you don’t want me around. You’ll be taken care of too, Dolly. I’ll set her up with a trust fund, just like every Darling.”
A knock sounds at the splintered door, and Kamlai sticks her head into the room.
Dolly pulls her hand from mine quickly and stands, as if she were caught doing something wrong.
I’m reminded of the time I took her cold hand in mine after we went sledding, the day after I kissed her, and how she saw Devlin looking and jerked her fingers from mine.
She was always ashamed of our connection, even before I looked like a monster.
“Dr. Swift is on his way,” Kamlai says.
Dolly wipes her face and sniffles before squaring her shoulders and smiling down at me, her face splotchy from crying. “If you’re sure…”
“It’s the least I can do.”
She nods, bending as if to kiss my forehead, but I turn my face away. I don’t want to be treated like a fucking baby. I’d rather her see me as the hideous beast of a man who forced her to carry his child.
She brushes her lips over my cheek anyway. “I love you,” she whispers, and then she’s gone.
I lay there shaking with fury. If she loved me, she wouldn’t walk away the first chance she got. I would never walk out on her, no matter what she said to me.
I’d rather she fucking kill me.
But that’s the difference between us. She wants her own life. I only want her. I know there’s no kind of life without her.
Kamlai gives me a sympathetic look and sits down beside me. “I’d say I can make you feel better, but I think that part of our lives is over for good,” she says, lacing her fingers through mine.
I glare at the window as if I could incinerate it with my rage. As if I could burn this whole fucking house to the ground, set the entire estate ablaze.
But I’m not the only person who depends on this place.
There are people like Kamlai and Mr. Potter whose livelihood depends on the paycheck I provide.
There are children like Charlie, Magnolia, and Sullivan who have no other place to go, no other roof over their heads if I don’t give them one.
There’s my fucking asshole of a grandfather, but I don’t really care about him.
He could burn alive with the place for all he’s done.