Chapter 38 - Allie
ALLIE
It wouldn’t matter if the man standing at my door looked nothing like me. I would still know. But he does. Same hair. Same eyes. He even wears the same glasses. I have always wondered if I got my bad eyesight from him. My mother has twenty-twenty vision.
His hands are shoved into the pockets of his dark jeans, his eyes swirling with intensity.
He lifts a hand to run his finger along the collar of his white T-shirt, and my eyes drop to the sleeves of tattoos that decorate both of his arms. I look away, not ready to see if any are tributes to other partners or children. I can’t go there yet.
“Alex,” he clears his throat. “Alexandra?”
My name is a question, and it’s not even my name. Not what I go by, anyway.
“Yes,” I whisper. It’s all I can say. What else is there? To him, I’m still Alexandra, the baby he left. Somehow I always knew that’s who I would be to him. My mom could have started calling me Allie during those first few months, but I knew she hadn’t. I never asked her, but I didn’t need to.
“I, um,” he stretches his arm up, scratching the side of his head. “I don’t know how to do this.”
“Me neither,” I state plainly.
“But you know who I am?”
“Yes,” I repeat.
A throat clears behind me, and that’s when I remember that Declan is still here.
I look back at him, silently communicating that I don’t want him to leave.
I can’t explain it. Declan is the last person on the planet I should want to witness this impending train wreck, but he’s the devil I know, and my father is the devil I don’t. I need someone in my corner.
Declan sighs. “I’ll be down the hall.”
I nod my head, thanking him, and turn back to the man in front of me. “Do you want to come in?”
“If that’s okay.”
I lead him into the living room and he sits on a chair, while I sit across from him on the couch. We stay like that, unmoving, for what feels like hours, but is probably only minutes before he finally breaks the silence.
“You have good taste in music.” He gestures to my T-shirt, the second man to notice it today. I glance down, but don’t say anything.
He smiles as if remembering something. “You know we used to play that for you when you were a baby.” He lets out a low, throaty chuckle. “It helped soothe you.”
“I know.” My tone is clipped, my gaze icy. He doesn’t get to reminisce about my childhood when he was there for all of five minutes.
His smile vanishes and he looks down at his hands. “I’m sorry.” It’s just two words. Words I’ve thought about, dreamed about, fantasized about since I was a little girl. Two words that should make everything better.
He cares.
He has regrets.
He’s sorry.
The words don’t give me the closure or relief I expected. Instead, they make my blood boil, red-hot rage coursing through my veins.
“You’re sorry?” I snap. “For what? Leaving us broke in the middle of the night, never to be heard from again? Missing out on my childhood? The fact that my mother had to work three jobs to put food on the table?” I stand from my seat, remembering what Declan just told me.
“Or are you sorry for not wanting to see me after all these years? Like you didn’t owe me at least that.
I’m curious. What exactly is it that you’re sorry for? ”
He scrubs a hand down his face. “All of it.”
“So it’s true. A friend of mine called you a couple of months ago, and you told him you didn’t want to see me?”
“Yes.”
Declan was telling the truth.
“So why the fuck are you here now?”
“I thought it would be worse for you. If you saw me again after everything. I didn’t want to cause any more pain than I already had.”
I feel like screaming. What is it with the damn men in my life trying to protect me from my own fucking feelings!
“That’s such bullshit,” I scoff. “You’re a coward. You didn’t want to see me because that would mean you would have to face what you did.”
He shakes his head, blowing out a breath.
“You didn’t answer my question. Why. Now.”
“Because you’re right!” He stands up from his seat too. “I did owe it to you. I realized I was being selfish, and you’re an adult now. It’s not like she can threaten me anymore.”
“What are you talking about?”
Pain flickers in his eyes at the thought of whatever he’s going to say. “Your grandmother. She made me leave.”
My heart sinks. I keep repeating the words in my head until they don’t even feel like words anymore.
She made me leave.
I cock my head to the side. “What do you mean she made you leave?”
“She told me that if I didn’t, she would drag us through court for custody of you. She said it wouldn’t be hard. We were just teenagers, broke and broken, and she was wealthy. Had a stable environment. I was just a kid, Alexandra. I didn’t know what to do.”
“Allie,” I correct him. “I go by Allie.”
“Allie,” he repeats, the pain on his face subsiding a little. “I like that.”
“So you just up and left because Celeste Montgomery told you to?” I ask, ignoring his last comment.
He hangs his head, looking down at his boots. “Yeah.”
“That’s—” I’m not even sure how I feel. It means he didn’t want to leave us, but he did it anyway. He didn’t stay and fight.
“I know,” he says without me even having to say the words. “Believe me, there’s not a day that has passed that I haven’t thought about it.” He takes his glasses off to rub his eyes before replacing them—a familiar move.
“She wouldn’t even tell me why. I assume she didn’t want her daughter to end up married to the poor punk from across the tracks.
Either way, she gave me twenty-four hours to leave and said if I told your mom, the deal would be off.
I didn’t have much, but I left her whatever money I had saved up for you two. ”
My mom never told me that. She probably didn’t want to give me hope that he was a good man, only to then realize he was still never coming back.
I assume that’s also why she let me believe he didn’t care enough to show up to my dance.
It makes sense, though. I’ve always wondered how we survived those first few weeks before she got a job cleaning houses.
And Celeste? She’s a hundred times more awful than I thought. She made him leave because she couldn’t fathom my mother marrying for love instead of money. She had already cut us off. She sent him away just to punish my mother for keeping me.
“Your mom—is she?”
My eyes flick up to meet my father’s stormy blue ones. “Recovering from her latest abusive relationship? Yes,” I snap.
He grits his teeth, realization and agony washing over his face. It was a fucked-up thing to say, but I don’t regret it. It’s the truth.
“Shit, Allie—”
“That wasn’t the only thing you left, was it?”
Hopeful eyes flick up to mine. “You found it?”
Wordlessly, I stand and leave the room. When I return holding my father’s guitar in my hands, he rises, hesitantly reaching out to rub his hand over the faded stickers. “Where did you think I got my taste in music from?”
Something like pride shines in his glassy eyes, and I should be pissed again. He doesn’t deserve to feel pride knowing he shared something with me. Then again, maybe he was a victim, too. Maybe we all were.
“Allie, I—”
He doesn’t get a chance to finish his sentence before my front door swings open and Ashton storms through my living room.
“Ash? What are you doing here?”
“You fucking asshole,” he roars as he rears back and goes to punch my father in the face.
My dad ducks and swings out his fist, which instantly connects with Ashton’s face, causing him to stumble back.
Blood pours from his nose, dripping down his chin and staining his crisp white button-up.
Ashton looks down, and I think for a second he’s going to pass out, but instead, he rushes back toward my dad before I can stop him.
“You son of a bitch,” he yells, crashing into my dad, who uses his strength to push Ashton off him.
“Stop!” I scream, the guitar falling to the ground just as Declan runs out and wraps his arms around Ashton from behind. Ashton fights him, twisting his body and kicking his legs out to try to get free.
“You piece of shit,” Ashton spits out. “You left her. You broke her fucking heart.”
Declan starts dragging him out of the front door when I see Nate walk in out of the corner of my eye. What the hell is happening right now?
“Jesus, Ash, what the fuck?” I hear him yell.
Nate looks at the blood on his face and then at my dad, who is rubbing his bruised knuckles. He shakes his head, goes to the kitchen, and calmly walks out, holding a bag of frozen peas and muttering something about someone beating him to it.
“You good?” he asks me on his way out, and I nod my head, still unable to form words.
He bends down, picks the fallen guitar up from the floor, and places it on the coffee table.
Peas in hand, he casually strides out of the room and shuts the door behind him, leaving me alone with my estranged father.
The man who just punched my ex-lover in the face.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” he rasps. “It’s an old habit. I see a threat, I act. It’s a military thing.”
“You’re in the military?”
“I was. I enlisted right after…”
“You left us?” I supply.
“Yeah.”
“I tried not to put much force into the punch, though, just in case it was someone you knew.”
“That was not using much force?”
He chuckles and it’s the first time since he showed up at my door that I see a hint of anything other than pain and regret in his eyes. “He’d be unconscious if I used full force.”
I roll my eyes. Just what I need. Another arrogant man in my life.
“I’m assuming you don’t want to talk about whatever that was about.” His eyes float to the door that Ashton recently barged through.
“I really don’t,” I sigh, and he nods. “I’m going to check on him, though.”
“Hey, Allie?” he calls out as he starts to walk out. “I’m not judging or anything, and I know I don’t deserve to know anything about your life, but… how many boyfriends do you have?”
A giggle bubbles up out of me. It starts slow but builds until I’m bent over, laughing hysterically. My father just blinks at me.
“None,” I say, catching my breath. “I don’t have any boyfriends.”
“The fuck you don’t.”
I spin around to see Ashton standing in the entryway, blood all over his shirt, hair disheveled, holding the bag of frozen peas against his face. He stalks closer, and my father follows suit, coming to my side. I don’t miss the protective gleam in his eyes.
“Allie, I tried. I really did.” He removes the peas, tossing them on the floor. “I tried to let you go.”
I see Declan and Nate enter behind him. Nate looks apologetic while Declan has a shit-eating grin on his face.
“I can’t do it. So hate me,” he slams his palm against his chest. “Punish me. Let your dad kick my ass. Make me leave. I’ll never take your choice away, but I’ll also never stop loving you.”
My eyes fall to the man in front of me, eyes wild, blood-stained, and bruised, hair matted to his forehead with sweat, as his chest heaves with a sharp intake of breath.
The truth is I can’t let him go either. I’m not sure I could have even if I didn’t find out that he kept my dad a secret from me so I wouldn’t get hurt.
That thought scares me more than anything, but I did find out, and that changes things.
Maybe it shouldn’t, and maybe that makes me just like her. But I have one life, and I’ll be damned if I don’t give it another chance to prove me wrong. To prove that love exists and is more than the pain it causes.
I want to tell him all this, to run into his arms and kiss away the hurt in his eyes, but then I remember we have an audience. I look around the room at the various eyes pinned directly on us.
“Ash,” I say gently. “Let’s talk in private.”
Declan takes a step back. “I’m out,” he announces.
“I’ll be next door visiting my nephew if you need me,” Nate says flatly as he follows closely behind Declan.
I look at my dad, the redness on his knuckles already starting to bloom into violet bruises. He looks carefully from me to Ashton. “Are you safe with him?”
Ashton scoffs, but I level him with a glare. “Yes,” I say, turning back to my father.
He tips up his chin. “I’m staying at a hotel in Rocky Falls.” He places a card down on my entryway table. “Here’s my cell number. I’ll be here whenever you’re ready to talk. If you’re not, that’s okay too.”
I nod. “Thank you.”
“Do you think…” he trails off, looking down at the floor. “Do you think she would see me?” He doesn’t have to specify who. I know exactly what he means. My mother’s words come back to me.
There was only one man for me, and if he showed up at my doorstep right now, even after all this time, I’d like to think I would hear him out.
“I would slam the door in your face if I were her,” I say honestly. “But lucky for you, I’m not.”
He dips his head, sliding past Ashton, and then he’s gone.