Chapter 8
Ashley
I gently bite my nail as I sit outside the dean's office with several other students who don’t want to walk in graduation, waiting to see if we’ve actually passed. If we’re now qualified to go into the industries we’ve all chosen and damn am I scared.
What if I got a few questions wrong?
Crap, what if I got them all wrong?
What if I messed up at the farm this past year, considering everything that's been going on at home?
What if the past eight years have been for nothing?
I gently bounce my leg, my stomach tightening with worry, my mind going a million miles per hour.
I can’t even call Ty like I would have done in high school when I was scared I’d failed a test and my mama was going to be pissed because we’re no longer together.
He chose another woman and I’m now dating a guy I don’t even feel remotely attracted to.
After dinner with Talen and lying through my teeth about being on my period, something he wasn’t too fussed about and actually wanted to still have sex, I managed to leave him with a heavy kiss good night.
I spent the whole weekend Cole was with his dad, the first weekend where I didn’t get several messages about wanting to come home, only three this time, deep cleaning the apartment after finding a cockroach in the tub which is something I will not be telling anyone about.
I don’t need Tyler trying to get full custody of our son, I mean, years ago, I would deny anyone who would accuse him of trying.
But now? I don’t know him because the man I married wouldn’t have had an affair.
He wouldn’t have hurt me the way he did, instead he would have confronted me and I would have cried my absolute heart out as I admitted to being raped, to losing our baby.
He would have held my hand while I waited for these results.
Damn, what if I did really fail?
My phone buzzes, getting my attention, and I check it only to silently groan seeing it’s Tyler.
I could let it go to voicemail, but then he’ll likely try to find me using Dirty’s tech skills. I really don’t want him to know I’m here or about my degree, especially since he no longer has that right.
Maybe, just maybe, he’s calling to accept the divorce?
One could hope, even if it tears my heart into shreds, it’s what's best for us and Cole, because there is no coming back from what he did.
“Hello,” I answer on a sigh, deciding to get this over with.
“What took you so long to answer?” Tyler asks in return.
I roll my eyes at his alpha-hole tone and snide, “Debating on whether or not to answer.” He growls, and I shake my head and ask, “What can I do for you, Trigger?”
“Don’t fucking call me that!” he snaps, but I don’t remark back, knowing there is no point.
I may think of him as Tyler in my mind, never once calling him his road name that he earned when he got a little too trigger-happy one evening in the yard, but I’ll never call him his legal name to his face again.
He broke us.
Could I have communicated with him? Yeah, sure why not, but I had just been raped.
Even now, I still feel filthy over that concept, I’d lost our baby that my heart still hasn’t gotten over.
He chose to screw someone else, not me, he chose to allow his mind to conjure up crap he knew was bullshit because he knew he was my life.
This mess, this break up, this pain and heartache is all him.
“Caleb's birthday is coming up. Dirty wanted to make sure you were going to attend,” he grumbles, and I chew my bottom lip.
“Is Cheryl going to be there?” I ask, knowing I can’t be in the same room as that woman, not after what I walked in on a few years ago.
The bitch works at the club's strip club, Rebel’s Honeys, and had tried to trap Dirty, poking holes in the condoms she used with only him when she was his main girl for a while.
When she claimed to be pregnant, she had the biggest grin on her face which soon fell when Dirty denied the pregnancy until he got proof.
It pissed her off because Stone didn’t deny when his now dead ex-wife had claimed to be pregnant even though she wasn’t and married her and Ty never denied Cole, putting a ring on my finger even though I never asked for it.
As soon as the DNA test came back proving Caleb was his, she got her grin back until he did one even better and took full custody, breaking the trance Cheryl had of living an easy life off her child.
She barely came around, but when she did, she was nasty, and it took a lot for me to hold my tongue until I walked in on her smacking Caleb across the back with a wooden spatula.
His screams still echo in my head.
She denied it, of course, after I punched her and broke her nose. Caleb refused to speak, too traumatized, so it was my word against hers, and the club believed her because, in their eyes, I was a patch chaser as well.
She got off with no punishment while Caleb remains traumatized.
“You can put your claws away, she won’t be there, Caleb didn’t want her, he wanted you,” Ty confirms softly, and I retort, “Ever wonder why?”
“I know why, pixie, I always knew she hurt Caleb, and so did Dirty which is why he keeps her clear of him and why he threatened her life. Pixie the only reason we couldn’t sack the bitch is because without the club vote, we can’t do jack shit,” he murmurs, and I snort.
“No one believed me because of you,” I remind him, and he sighs.
I didn’t know why at the time, didn’t understand until I heard a few of the older generation old ladies. Tank’s step-mama, Sara, bitched about how I trapped Ty, how I was trying to get rid of anyone who I saw as competition.
It was then that I began to believe I wasn’t family.
“I’ll be there,” I say, knowing he won’t say anything that will make it better, that will prove to me that I have a family because I don’t.
“Good, I’ll let Dirty know,” he says, then decides to piss me off as he states, “Drop off and pick up from now on will be me unless I’m on a run. I should be back in time to pick Cole up Thursday.”
“No,” I instantly deny, but he talks over me and states, “It’s time we stop pussy footing around each other, we’re seeing a therapist. Pixie, Friday night I held our son as he cried his heart out.”
My mouth drops as my stomach sinks, hearing the truth in his words.
“What, why?” I choke, pressing down on my stomach.
He didn’t say anything when I picked him up from school yesterday.
“Because his mama wasn’t where she belonged, and he blames me,” he mentions.
“It is your fault, Trigger!” I remind him, “You screwed my high school bully for a whole freaking year with me in the other room for Christ's sake. Pretending like she was just another clubwhore. This is your fault, you broke us.”
He chuckles darkly and mentions, “And what about your lover, Ash? The reason why you wouldn’t allow me to touch you? The reason why you showered like I was filth the four times you actually allowed me to touch you? You aren’t innocent in all this.”
He’s so adamant I slept with someone else.
I open my mouth to call him delusional, but soon clamp it shut when he says, “If you weren’t fucking someone else, then why is it when I sat outside your work several times over the past nearly two years, you didn’t show up until the evening?
You said you work all day and evening because you want a purpose in life after being a mama and wife, yet you're never there during the day.”
Damn…
“It’s none of your business where I am, Trigger,” I snap, not knowing what else to say.
I get it. it looks bad, but again, he could have confronted me instead of finding a way to satisfy his needs.
“It had everything to do with me because it is what started everything off,” he growls.
The man is delusional.
“No, Trigger, what started it off was you not confronting me and deciding to sleep with someone else because you didn’t get to screw around in high school.
Which again, was all down to you. You are the one who claimed me when I moved to town, you were the one who made me your old lady.
I never asked, and you were the one who demanded I marry you when I gave you an out twice.
Don’t you dare try and put the fact you couldn’t keep it in your pants on my shoulders.
You broke up our family, Trigger, not me. ”
“Ashley Davis?” the receptionist calls, and Trigger demands, “Who in the fuck is that?!”
“None of your business,” I reply instantly and snap, “I’ll see you next week in therapy, Trigger, and you can continue to try and blame me for your actions.”
I hang up without another word before taking a deep breath, trying to ignore all the shocked eyes on me.
Great, now everyone knows my business.
Damn Tyler!
Shaking my head, I stand and walk over to the receptionist, ready to hear my fate.
I walk out of the school office half an hour later after shaking the dean's hand and stare at my veterinary license, my mouth dry.
My phone has vibrated several times, but I’ve ignored it, knowing it’s Ty, probably pissed that I hung up on him but I don’t care.
I passed, I… damn, I’m a vet.
My eyes blur as my phone rings again, and I check it to ensure it isn’t Cole’s school, but sigh, seeing who it is.
“Dirty,” I answer, “this isn’t a surprise… Let me guess, he wants you to find where I am.”
“I already know where you are, sweetheart. I looked as soon as he asked, which, by the way, is the first time he ever has,” Dirty replies, and I swallow hard.
“I can understand why you don’t want to tell him.
I also understand exactly where you’ve been every day for the past eight years and working evenings, and what I want to know: Did you pass? ”
I smile slightly as a few tears fall, and I admit, “I did, I’m officially a vet and already have a job lined up.”
“Fuck, Ashley, I am so goddamn proud of you. Having Cole in high school, working full time at Clark’s, going to school full time, I am so proud of you. Why haven’t you told Trigger?” he says, pride and confusion lacing his voice.
“I was going to,” I admit, “but he canceled our date because his mama lied about being ill, and then I just, things happened that I don’t want to talk about. I pulled back from him, and he decided to believe I was cheating.”
He’s quiet for a moment as I climb into my car before he finally asks, “Ashley, if I look into the cameras at the convenience store from two years ago, from the day you went quiet on Trigger, what am I going to find?”
My bottom lip trembles, not shocked that he’s come to the realization so quickly as he has, and I plead with a tremble in my voice, “Please don’t…” not needing him to see something like that.
“Fuck.” He chokes, and I sniffle.
“I’m begging you, Alex, please don’t look, stay out of it all,” I sob, and he curses up a storm.
“You need to tell him,” he growls, “You need to tell him everything at therapy next week, or I will. Ashley, he needs to know.”
“He doesn’t deserve to know Alex, he had an affair while I-I…” I shake my head, unable to form the words.
“I don’t care, he needs to know, and you know what? You can dump that fucking boyfriend of yours while you’re at it and come home,” he snaps.
I instantly deny, “No, I’m moving on with my life.”
“But you're not because you are still in love with Tyler!” he snaps, and I snap back, “Who had an affair for a whole year while all of you stood back and watched! I deserve to be happy, Alex, he didn’t even want to marry me, he didn’t want our son.”
Dirty sighs, “Tell him next week, Ashley, or I will, and I’ll look into your medical history if you don’t, I will breach your privacy just so you can finally be free of the burden of your fucking trauma you should have told us about.”
He hangs up without another word, and my tears fall hard and fast as I choke on my sobs, breathing becoming difficult and after a few minutes my phone vibrates twice, and I look at it.
Dirty:
We love you, Ashley, and I’m pissed you didn’t even come to me. We’re family, as much as you don’t feel like we are, as much as we all fucked up and kept quiet for what Tyler did, you are still family.
I shake my head, don’t message him back, and read the next message, my stomach sinks.
Talen:
Can’t wait for our date later, baby xx.
Crap.
I quickly message him back, lying.
Me:
Hey, so sorry, but Cole isn’t feeling well. Can we reschedule? Xx
I press send without remorse, knowing I can’t spend the evening with him, not after my phone call with Dirty.
Wiping away my tears, I throw my phone on the passenger seat along with my license and start my car. It struggles a few times before starting, and I pull away from the school, adamant to find a solution so Dirty keeps his mouth shut, even if I have to use Caleb as an excuse.
Tyler doesn’t deserve to know what I went through, none of the club does.