Chapter Thirty-Five
TRAVIS
I have no intention of leaving the hospital. Be it outside or in, I’m not leaving here until I see her. Dean got carted away to the station because the fucker inside with Mollie made sure of it. The same way he put two officers at the door to make sure I stay put and can’t get to her.
My eyes haven’t left them. Haven’t left the direction of where I know she is. I’m fucking freezing. My arse is numb from sitting on my bike for the past three hours, waiting. I don’t care though. I need to see her. I can’t miss her walking out of here without having the opportunity to right my wrongs.
My heart only ever beat for her.
She is what I want.
She is what I need.
I see her. She sees me.
A life without our chaos won’t be worth living. I’ve played out all the things I could say, all the ways in which I’ll make a start to showing her I can be the man she needs me to be. Rather than accept what was right in front of me, I put all my fear onto her. I should never have done that. That wasn’t fair.
An ambulance comes screaming up the ramp to the main doors, and I think about seizing the opportunity to make a break for the door. Standing, I watch the officers step out of the way, but my feet stay planted when I check who’s calling me, seeing his name flash across the screen. “How the fuck are you calling me from your phone?”
“Have you spoken to Mollie?” he replies, not answering my obvious question. He’s rushing, out of breath like he’s running.
His words hit me with immediate force. “No, why? ”
“She’s leaving! I can’t fucking get hold of her.”
Every beat of my black heart feels like a knife twisting into my flesh. What the fuck is he talking about, leaving? “Dean?” I need him to talk to me. Need him to hurry up and explain how he’s able to call me after being arrested.
One of the officers sees me take a step closer, his eyes nervously noting my every move. A hand flies to my head, the disbelief indescribable.
“Her dad got me out but I spoke to her, she said she was leaving.”
“You spoke to her?” How? Why? None of this is making any sense.
“That doesn’t matter right now. That was an hour ago, mate. She could have left already.”
She hasn’t come out. I haven’t moved. “I haven’t seen her leave.” Or her dad for that matter. “What the fuck did she say exactly?” I begin pacing, unsure whether I should jump on my bike or stay fucking put. What if Dean’s wrong? What if she’s still inside? Then again, what if she’s not. What if I missed her?
I blink, my pacing up and down quickening, the repetitive sound of my manic steps, relentless. The officer has stepped even closer. My time is running out.
“Where would she go?” he asks, again not answering my fucking question. This is becoming painful, the burning pain in my chest becoming unbearable.
“I don’t know?” Home? Our home. Or back with her father? Back to her old life before me.
“Think.”
“Fuck!” I wrench a hand through my hair, grabbing a handful and pulling tight. “I don’t fucking know!” I haven’t seen or spoken to her for days. The brief glance I caught earlier wasn’t long enough for her to see that I’m sorry. So fucking sorry for everything I’ve done.
“We need to find her.”
“Tell me fucking how!” Please. I can’t see straight. I can’t think.
Dean gives me what I need. The orders I need to follow. “Go home. She might have gone there first.”
I’m moving fast, my feet carrying me with so much pace I feel like my body can’t catch up with them.
“Listen to her,” I catch him saying, before I’m hanging up and starting the engine.
I steam out of the car park and onto the motorway, racing to get back to the farm. She can’t leave me. She can’t just go without giving me a chance. You blew that chance when you walked out on her. “Fuck!” I bellow, my words being carried away in the wind racing past my ears.
This can’t be happening. This can’t be how it ends.
I make it there, manoeuvring around a parked car at the top of the drive, pushing my bike to maximum speed all the way to the front door of the house I built for us. This should have been it. This should have been where I grew old with her. The place we’d forever call our own. Except, when I throw off my helmet and run up the path to the door, fiddling with the key to get it open, the house looks dead inside. Empty. A shell. There’s no love or safety, just a blank space before me.
I rush to the bedroom, seeing the bag she started packing for me, no longer there. Gone.
She’s gone.
Aimlessly, I walk to the lounge, my feet slowing to a gradual stop. Unmoving, I stare at the sofa, the cushions all a mess, the blanket strewn across the seats. She was last there, no doubt waiting for me to come home. What have I done?
Mick’s quad bike pulling up drags me from my broken state, and I move to the sofa, meaninglessly staring at it, imagining her lying there. I don’t need to check if she’s here. She isn’t. I know she isn’t. I can’t smell her. Can’t hear the telling sounds of her delicate feet walking around the house, coming to find me. Coming to tell me she loves me. Needs me.
I rub my eyes as the door swings open. “Son?”
The word rocks my resolve, and I fall to the sofa, my head landing in my open hands.
Mick stands behind me, one hand on my shoulder, physically letting me know I’m not alone. He doesn’t know that without her, I always will be. No amount of people around me will ever fill the void that once again will rule my world. The endless days of waking up without purpose, the lonely nights spent without someone loving me. That’s what lies ahead for me now.
“I’m so glad you’re okay. We… we thought we’d lost you.” Mick lets out a relieved breath, his fingers giving my shoulder a squeeze .
Lifting my head, I stare dead ahead. “You didn’t lose me.” But I lost her.
“Where’s Mollie?”
“Gone,” I reply flatly.
Mick moves around the sofa urgently. “What do you mean gone?”
“Exactly that,” I snap, standing and turning away from him. I can’t look at him. I know what comes next. Fear it. Time after time he has believed in me. I’m only going to hurt him again. Let him down in a way he knows all too well.
“Have you spoken to her?”
“I—” My lips part on a lost breath. I take a step. Stop. Stare at the envelope on the counter that shouldn’t be there. The silence ripping the air tells me what I already know. It’s from her. Her goodbye? No. Please, God, no.
Struggling to clear my vision, I swallow and blink away my sadness as I take small steps closer. I pick it up, refusing to open it with Mick here. I can’t guarantee what it will say. And I can’t guarantee how I’ll react. The mess might be too much. This clean up might just be too fucking much for him this time. “Give me a minute?” I ask him, not giving him my face.
I hear him sigh but he walks to the door, indicating he’s fully aware of what comes next. “Whatever happens, please don’t do anything stupid. I’m here if you need me, Son.”
My neck clicks. My eyes close. “Okay.” I can’t make him any promises. Not until I read what’s inside.
I wait until I can hear his quad riding away, then drag myself to the nearest chair at the breakfast bar and slump myself down. Resting my elbows on the surface, I peel it open, taking my time like I should savour it. Savour her last words. They might not be last words.
They are.
Travis,
There are a million words I want to say, and yet, I can’t write them all on this paper.
Dean should be safe now. Please don’t be mad with him, it was my choice to leave like this. Seeing you would have been too hard.
The decision with the baby is the right one for both of us. Now I’m no longer tied to you, both of us can have what we always wanted; the freedom to make our own decisions, to live our lives doing what we love. So spend yours doing what you love most, Travis, because I’m going to. I won’t waste my life thinking about you, so don’t waste a second of yours thinking about me. What we had was great while it lasted. But that’s all it could have ever been.
I guess our chaos was just too much for both of us.
Mollie
I knew I’d seen heaven. I felt the beauty of it every time I looked at Mollie’s face. The place I find myself in now, though, it isn’t there. It isn’t even hell. It’s worse. So much worse.
It burns harder than the bullet I took. The white-hot rage emanates from within me. What did she mean the decision with the baby ? She won’t waste a second of her life thinking about me?
A blinding darkness collides with my reason as I grab for my phone, dialling Dean without any hesitation.
“Did you find her?” he asks, beating me to asking him what happened.
“I found a note. What the fuck happened with Mollie? The truth. I need all of it.” My teeth crash together, my mind spinning. Did she lose the baby? My heart gives up on me as I knew it would if this day ever came.
He speaks fast. “I came by yours after I called her, asking after you. She wasn’t there and neither was the gear.”
“How did she find it?” My head swings toward the bedroom. If she found the gear, she also saw the ring I bought her. Is it still there? I’m up, making my way to our room and dropping to my knees once I’m by the foot of the bed. The box is still there. She would have seen.
“I don’t know. But I saw the box under the bed, figured that’s where it was. I knew she’d go in your absence.”
I scoff. “And? What the fuck, Dean?” She’s gone, and I still don’t fucking know what the fuck really happened to the baby.
My baby.
Fuck.
“I called Rocco and he came with me. We found her,” he swallows harshly, “with Matthew.”
“What?” I bark, standing to my feet in a rush. “Did he hurt her?”
“Yeah, brother. But not like you think. ”
I breathe the smallest breath of relief that he didn’t violate her.
“She was on the floor, high, coke covering her face. She couldn’t breathe.”
My fist crashes against the door, slamming it back, my hand instantly spitting blood. That motherfucker hurt her again.
“We got her to the hospital after the fucker paid with his life, and she…”
“Fucking what? She did what, Dean?” I shake my hand, storming to the kitchen and grabbing my keys. I’m grateful he dealt with Matthew, but that should have been my job. My responsibility. It’s my fucking duty to take her pain away.
“She was okay. Apart from her broken wrist, that was it. Rocco messaged me telling me she was pregnant, but everything was okay.”
Fuck. I hear what he’s saying. That means the baby was okay when she arrived. She had an abortion? Ended the life inside her. Is that on me? Because I made her think she should before I went? I made her choose. I thought she chose the baby over me. I never thought she would do this, not really. I never thought she’d have it in her.
Frantic, I head to my bike, running, needing to ride, needing to find her. Needing to find some fucking calm. Anything. I have to ask her for myself. Was it an accident? Did she kill my baby? I have no right to feel any anger towards that idea, but I can’t help how it’s growing inside me, dulling me of my senses, dissolving any peace I have left.
“Are you still there?” I hear Dean ask.
Swinging a leg over my bike, I start her up, no fucks given for needing my helmet. “Just.”
“Mollie said she couldn’t forgive you. That the baby was gone?”
My eyes close. The air around me is heating and it has nothing to do with the sun beginning to rise. The only woman who truly believed in me has left. “Means she decided my future for me.” That’s not strictly true. I did this. I blamed her. But she did this too. She made a choice without me. Gave me no opportunity to make this right. There’s absolutely no going back now. At least before there was a chance, one tiny slither of hope I could grab onto.
That’s dead now.
“Trav—”
I hang up. Dragging my eyes open, I get on my bike and ride out the farm to the top of the track. I’m fast. Unsteady. Wanting to put as much distance between that place and me as possible, I ride around the car, pulling back on the throttle but immediately slow to a stop, looking back over my shoulder.
I don’t recognise the car that’s been sat there since I got back. No car would pull up here if they didn’t know what this place was. Swinging the handlebars, I spin and ride alongside the passenger window.
Lights flicking on, the car’s engine purrs to life. The dazzling Mercedes giving away who’s inside. I trail my gaze, knowing she’s in there, only just making out the silhouette of a person. She doesn’t want to be with me. Her note made it clear. She won’t waste a moment of her time thinking about me.
“I guess I should get used to the pain you’ve caused.”
My low blow has her reaching for the handle, that fight still very much there. She’s stopped before she can open it, presumably her father keeping her on the straight and narrow.
I grin.
It’s fake.
Plastered on my face only for effect, nothing about this feels good. Nothing about this is what I want. “Don’t worry, Baby Doll, you were right.” No she wasn’t, don’t say it! “It was great whilst it lasted.” Liar. Coward! I reach into my cut, pulling out the box I was going to give her. I stare at it before closing my eyes, trying to hold back the fucking tears that are threatening to leave me. I can’t let them. I can’t let her see them.
Dropping it to the floor, I look to where I know she’ll be looking. I hate what I’m about to do, but I can’t stop it. Can’t stop the destructive part of my personality that thrives on pushing everyone away when I find myself in the rough. “You said it yourself, once; people save themselves when the shit hits the fan.” I swallow, my skin heating. “Don’t ever come back here, Mollie. You hear me? I don’t ever want to see you again.”
And I leave. Again. Before she can. Again.
This isn’t the ending I wanted with her.
I guess it’s just the one I deserve.