CHAPTER SIXTEEN #2
He watches me for a moment, like he’s weighing up how much to give. “Because you’re trying to convince me you’re okay, so talking about Josh should be easy, right?” He sighs. “And because you were right. I don’t know enough about you, and I think now is a good time to change that.”
I shake my head slightly. “Then tell me about you. I’m tired of being the one under the microscope.”
His mouth twitches, but there’s no real humour behind it. “What do you want to know?”
“About your childhood.”
Something shifts in his expression. “That’s a loaded subject,” he says. “I don’t think you’re ready for it.”
“Try me,” I reply softly. “Who are your parents?”
His jaw tightens. “I don’t have any. Well, obviously I do,” he adds after a second, like he’s correcting himself, “but they put me into care when I was young. I don’t remember much. Not enough to matter.” There’s a quiet bitterness there.
“And that’s where you met Anika?” I ask.
He nods. His expression softens in a way I haven’t seen before. “She used to follow me around at school, I think the teachers must have told her we were in a similar situation,” he says, a faint smile pulling at his lips. “She wouldn’t shut up. A hundred words a minute. Drove me insane.”
I can almost picture it. Her bright, him irritated.
“So, what did you do?” I ask.
“I shoved her against a wall and kissed her,” he says simply.
My eyes widen slightly. “That’s one way to deal with it,” I mutter.
“It worked.” He shrugs. “She shut up.” There’s a pause.
“But it wasn’t . . . that,” he adds, quieter now.
“Not really. We figured out pretty quick we were better as friends.” His smile fades.
“She stuck with me, proved that not everyone leaves,” he continues.
“Through everything, we became something like a family. The kind we never had.”
“With Dale?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says, and this time the smile is real.
“With Dale.” His gaze drifts slightly, like he’s seeing something else.
“We did some bad shit growing up,” he admits.
“Things I’d never want my kids anywhere near.
But we survived it because of each other.
” There’s something raw in is words, and I see the vulnerability behind his mask.
“They saved me,” he adds quietly. “More than they’ll ever know.
They gave me a reason to fight—for them, for us, for our better life. ”
I swallow, my chest tightening. “What made you and Anika cross that line?” I ask, unable to stop myself. “If your friendship meant that much?”
It’s been sitting with me, eating at me.
He shakes his head immediately. “We didn’t,” he says, firm. “Not like that. I didn’t lie to you.”
His hand finds mine and I don’t fight it as he interlocks our fingers. And despite everything, I still feel it.
That stupid pull.
“You can’t tell anyone this,” he adds, seriously. I nod. He studies me for a second, then continues. “Anika fixed the DNA test,” he says.
I blink. “What?”
“She knew Luke,” he goes on, his voice tightening, “and she knew the second he realised he’d get no money, he’d walk away. Not just from her but from Sebastian.” I exhale slowly. “She couldn’t risk that,” he says. “Couldn’t risk her son ending up in care because of his spite.”
“So, she . . .” I trail off.
“Switched it,” he confirms. “Made it look like Sebastian was mine.” The room feels quieter somehow. “Luke won’t question it,” he adds. “He doesn’t care enough to dig.”
There’s something almost cold in that truth.
“But you do,” I say softly.
His grip on my hand tightens. “Yeah,” he says. “I do.” There’s no hesitation. “I love that kid,” he continues. “Always have. And I’ll raise him like he’s mine, because as far as I’m concerned, he is.”
My throat tightens. “And our baby?” I ask, barely above a whisper.
His eyes flick to mine. “The same,” he says. “No difference. No lines. No favourites.”
I nod slowly, trying to process everything.
Then I take a breath. “I got a call that night,” I murmur, my voice barely steady.
“Josh’s friend . . . he rang me after the accident.
” The memory hits like it always does, like I’m right back there again, but I’ve talked so much these last few weeks about it all that the sting is less.
“It wasn’t far,” I continue, staring at nothing.
“I ran to him. In the rain. Still in my pyjamas . . . no shoes, nothing.” My throat tightens. “I didn’t even think. I just ran.”
I swallow hard, but it doesn’t ease the ache building in my chest. “I saw them working on him,” I whisper.
“Trying to bring him back.” My fingers twist into the blanket.
“But I knew,” I add, my voice cracking. “Before anyone said anything, I knew it was hopeless.” I take another breath.
“My mum died while I was at college,” I go on, the words tumbling out now.
“I begged my dad to let me stay home that day. I had this feeling, like something bad was going to happen.”
My chest rises sharply as the memory presses in.
“He made me go anyway,” I whisper. “And then she was just . . . gone. I never saw her again.” Tears blur my vision now, spilling over before I can stop them.
“And then Anika . . .” My voice breaks completely.
“It was just too much. Too many goodbyes.” I fold in on myself, the sobs coming harder now, like I’ve been holding them back for too long.
The bed dips beside me and Ray’s arms come around me, pulling me in without hesitation. I tense for a second, hating how familiar this feels, and then I melt against him. Because, god, it feels so good. Everything quiets for a moment, as the noise in my head finally shuts off.
I press into him, my fingers gripping his shirt as I cry. “It’s too hard,” I choke out. “Everyone just . . . leaves.”
His hand moves slowly over my hair, steady, grounding. “I know,” he murmurs. “I know how that feels. Unsafe. Hard. It’s a lot of loss for one person to carry,” he says quietly. “Anyone would break under that.”
I shake my head against his chest. “It feels like it’s me,” I whisper. “Like I’m the problem. Like if I’d just done something differently—”
“Hey,” he cuts in softly, pulling back just enough to look at me. His hand cups the side of my face, forcing me to meet his eyes. “That’s not how this works,” he says firmly. “You didn’t cause any of that.”
I sniff, but the doubt is still there. “I should have been with him,” I say. “I shouldn’t have let him leave that night.”
“You didn’t make him get in that car,” Ray replies. “You staying home from college wouldn’t have prevented your mum. And you didn’t cause what happened to Anika.” His thumb brushes away a tear from my cheek. “That’s not on you,” he adds. “None of it.”
I stare at him, wanting to believe it. Needing to. “It just feels like it is,” I whisper.
“I know,” he says. “Because when everything goes wrong, you look for a reason cos there has to be one, right? And when you can’t find it, you look for someone to blame.
And the easiest target is yourself.” His arms tighten around me again, pulling me back against him.
“But sometimes,” he murmurs into my hair, “life just deals you a shit hand.”
“I should have checked on her,” I sob.
The guilt claws up my throat, sharp and suffocating.
Ray’s grip tightens around me. “It wouldn’t have made a difference,” he says quietly.
“Anika wanted to die, Wynter.” I shake my head against him, but he keeps going.
“She was unhappy. And I either didn’t see it or I did and didn’t want to admit it.
” His voice drops. “If anyone’s to blame, it’s me.
” That makes me pull back slightly, looking at him through blurred vision.
“I’m sorry I missed it. That I was too selfish to see how unhappy she was.
That I didn’t want to let her go.” His words sound broken, as if it’s the first time he’s said them out loud.
We fall into silence after that. Just my uneven breathing filling the space between us.
After a while, he speaks again, softer this time. “Lucy told me she found you at Josh’s grave.”
My stomach tightens. “I don’t remember,” I lie.
“She said you wanted to be with him.”
I sigh, realising that lying to him isn’t helping. “For a second,” I say quietly. “Just a second.” I swallow hard. “I was overwhelmed. It wasn’t something I was going to do. I was just so sad.”
He studies me, like he’s trying to decide if he believes me. Then something shifts in his expression, it hardens as his hands hold on to my shoulders and he fixes me with a stare that tells me things are about to change.
“That can’t happen again,” he says firmly.
“It won’t,” I reply.
His jaw tightens. “Because you’re carrying my child now,” he adds, “and I won’t let anything happen to him or her.”
There it is. Not us. Not me.
The baby.
Something inside me cools.
“So,” he continues, like this is the obvious next step, “I want you to move in with me.”
I pull away from him completely this time. “No.”
He exhales slowly, like he expected that. “I’d rather give you the choice,” he says, his voice back to controlled, “than have to make it for you.”
My stomach drops, a feeling of dread hitting me. “I made my choice,” I say. “And I said no.”
“That’s not the right choice.”
I scoff, half amused, half panicked. “Excuse me?”
“You’ve been sectioned for your own safety,” he says. “And for the baby. They want to keep you here. You want to leave. I’m offering a middle ground.”
“It’s not your decision,” I snap. “It’s my dad’s.”
His gaze hardens. “I’ll get the paperwork,” he says. “A judge will sign it. I can take legal responsibility for your care if it comes to it.”
The room spins slightly. “You can’t do that,” I whisper. “You promised you wouldn’t take my baby.”
“And I won’t,” he says quickly. “That’s not what this is.”
“Then what is it?” My voice cracks. “Because it sounds like control.”
“It’s protection,” he fires back. “You’re not well, Wynter. You can’t even see that.”
“And you can?” I shoot back. “After everything that happened between us?”
His expression flickers—guilt, maybe—but it’s gone just as quickly. “I’m trying to fix this,” he says. “I’m trying to make sure you’re safe.”
“And make sure I don’t run off with your baby?” I challenge.
He hesitates. “That too,” he admits.
His word’s twist my heart painfully. I let out a hollow laugh, pulling the blanket tighter around myself. “So, if I say no, you’ll force it anyway?”
He nods. “I don’t want to,” he says. “But I will if I have to.”
I stare at him, realising that everything we just shared was a trick. A way to soften the blow. He doesn’t give a shit about me, about what I’ve been through. All he cares about is his child. Just like I suspected.
“I’m not something you get to manage,” I say quietly. “Or control. Or fix.”
His jaw tightens. “When you’re well,” he says carefully, “you can come and go as you like. I’m not trying to trap you.”
“It feels like you are.”
“You’re the mother of my child,” he says. “I respect you.”
I shake my head slowly. “No,” I whisper. “You respect the situation. Not me.” I swallow the lump in my throat. “Have you told dad or Aunt Lucy?”
He shakes his head and I scoff. “No, I bet you haven’t because you wouldn’t be sitting here now, they’d have kicked you out.” I groan, burying my face in my hands. “I’m so fucking stupid, I thought we were getting somewhere.”
“Wynter, we are,” he replies sounding pained. “This isn’t a setback. You’ll be able to see your therapist.”
“I don’t need a fucking therapist,” I scream, screwing the sheets in my hands angrily. I exhale, shaking my head. “I can’t believe I just sat there and poured my heart out about the only man I ever loved,” I whisper.
His eyes fill with hurt immediately and he pushes to his feet. His expression is back to cold. “Are we agreed or not?”
I stare past him, folding my arms over my chest. It’s not a choice, not really. I can’t stay here knowing it’s eating into my dad’s savings. And Ray isn’t going to let me trot off back home like none of this happened.
I give a slight nod and he exhales. “Good.” He swoops down to press a chaste kiss to my forehead, which I recoil from. He notices, shakes his head sadly, and leaves.