Chapter 68 #2
Lara looked at me apologetically.
So it wasn’t a joke…
“It’s not…,” Tony said sheepishly, and I couldn’t help but look at him.
“You knew about this?”
He looked apologetically from me to Lara, then back at me.
God, how blind had I been?
All these secrets…
All this information even refused to sink in properly.
Had no one – except Monica – been who they had pretended to be over the last few years? Was Quill the most real thing I’d ever had the privilege of discovering?
“At fourteen?” Monica looked at Lara as if she’d committed a crime. “She contacted you behind our backs?”
“Because she was afraid you’d forbid her even the last contact with me,” Lara explained desperately. “After all the warnings from Dad and you…”
“Lily Chester is manipulative. We would have had every reason to,” Monica said, her rage escalating. “That woman is bad company for you.”
“And that very lie is what y’all have been trying to drill into my head all these years, just because Mom was going through a rough patch.”
“Lara, she abandoned us,” I replied.
“Nobody’s perfect. And honestly, it was easy to forgive her after I heard her side of the story.”
I swallowed, but the lump in my throat didn’t go away. It just kept growing.
Had my daughter just confirmed what I’d feared all these years? That I was a man who was hard to love? That my writing had stood in the way of a normal family that Lara more than deserved?
“Dilara Rydell,” Monica glared at my daughter as if she’d just crossed a line. “Your father has built his life around you and…”
“I never asked for that!”
Lara sounded desperate, and I was about to stop Monica, but she stood up abruptly.
“I don’t know any man who could have been a better father to you than Davian, and this is how you thank him for wanting to protect you from someone who put both of you in this situation in the first place?”
Lara jumped up too, and Tony raised his hands, trying to calm the situation, but Lara ignored him.
“Why are you even getting involved? Mom never did anything to you! And you’re neither my aunt nor my grandmother, so please just stay out of this for once. This is between Dad, me, and Mom!”
My heart skipped a beat.
“Lara!” I warned her.
Lara’s head snapped toward me and a flush exploded across her cheeks.
Monica stared at Lara in shock.
I’d never heard the two of them speak to each other like that before. Not even when Lara had come home with her belly button piercing two years ago – which, as I’d only learned a few weeks ago, Quill had encouraged her to get back then.
Suddenly, Lara pushed her chair back, spun around, and I just caught a glimpse of tears filling her eyes before she rushed out of the dining room.
Tony got up immediately.
She Might Be Scared of You
Luke Richards
“I’ll go check…”
“No,” I interrupted him, my voice composed, and rose abruptly. “You stay here. I will talk to her. No arguments.” I looked from Monica to Tony. “And no fucking Troy.” They both stared at me awkwardly. “We’ll sort this out once everyone here has calmed down. Nice and easy.”
Myself included, because as composed as I had to appear, several storms were about to collide inside me.
It was probably a lousy idea to talk to Lara right now of all times, but this was a conversation we needed to have sooner or later. So why not now?
A ringing sound ripped through the oppressive silence, and I stopped, closed my eyes in resignation, and wished for nothing more than to be with Quill right now, who was surely picking up on all the drama here.
My plan to mediate failed, because Monica hastily pushed her chair back and immediately rushed past me.
“Over my dead body will I let Lily Chester into this house,” she hissed.
Tony looked at me apologetically and raised both hands.
“I tried to talk her out of it, but you know how Lara is when she sets her mind on something.”
I heard the front door open and immediately Monica’s angry voice rang out.
Taking a deep breath, I raised a finger and pointed at my friend.
“We will talk later.”
He lowered his hands and started turning his glass with a guilty look on his face.
All these years, I had wondered whose side he would take when push came to shove. Lara’s or mine. Now I knew the answer.
I made my way to the front door.
The Green Pills
Carlos Rafael Rivera
“Goddamn it, Monica. I’m only here because of Lara!”
Hearing her voice sent a slight shiver of nostalgia down my spine, just like it always did.
I didn’t miss her, didn’t miss what we’d had. And a desperate part of me wished I’d met Quill back then instead of her. But maybe it had to be this way. Maybe it was perfect the way it was, even if it didn’t feel like it.
“Davian’s childhood wasn’t what it should have been to begin with, and then some slut like you comes along and ruins the rest of his life?!”
I raised both eyebrows and paused in the hallway.
“Why do you keep meddling? For years I’ve wondered why a bitter, childless woman who isn’t even part of the family keeps trying to get her claws into what doesn’t belong to her.”
That was enough.
I stepped up beside Monica and spotted Lily in one of her expensive designer coats.
She had studied business, made something of herself. Something her parents were probably proud of, if they were still alive. They had never liked me, any more than her brother had. Still, I had ignored it and done my best for her and Lara. Until she had abandoned us.
“What you’ve done is absolutely irresponsible and just proves to me once again that you were never cut out to be her mother.”
She stared at me as if I had slapped her. Something she’d often done when we’d argued.
I wondered if Lara and she had ever argued during their secret meetings?
My jaw clenched involuntarily.
“Davian, you don’t know me as a mother.”
“And neither do I want to get to know you as a mother. That chance has passed.”
I had never asked her if Lara had any siblings, if she had started a new life. I wished that for her. But please, far away from me and my daughter.
All emotion drained from her face.
“Lara is an adult,” she forced out. “And I’m proud of the woman she’s become.
” Bitterness filled her eyes. “But when I first met her four years ago, I realized how damaging it was for her to grow up with only her father. Whatever you think you’ve achieved, she would never have become this woman without me. ”
Despair crashed down. On all the self-confidence Monica and Tony had drummed into me over the last few years.
I wasn’t a good father. And they all knew it. Lily was the only one who dared to say it out loud.
Four years ago. When I’d been too busy with Batteries of Ink...
Was this my punishment for that wretched slip-up? Would Lily ever have been able to reach Lara so easily if I hadn’t been distracted by publishing a damn book? What if Lara had been overwhelmed by me? Just like Lily back then…
“Get out of here!” Monica snapped at her.
“Lara has…”
“Now!”
Monica stepped toward her.
“Lara has three people who raised her. Successfully. If she wants to see you, she can meet you out of our sight.”
“Monica…” I said quietly, and Monica shot Lily one last withering glare before disappearing into the house.
Meghan’s Theme
David Buckley, Luke Richards
Lily stared after her before raising both eyebrows.
“Who is that old hag to you? The nanny who talked you into not trying again?”
Taking a deep breath, I pushed all the storms raging inside me into the corners where they belonged.
“Without Monica, I wouldn’t be where I am today.”
She studied me for a moment.
“Do you like where you are? At a university surrounded by a bunch of late-adolescents who’ll one day be better than you?
When you could be one of the top lawyers?
” There was judgement in her voice. “Come on, Dave, you’ve always been so damn smart.
Doctor, lawyer… You still have time to climb at least one of those career ladders.
But to waste away as a professor at a university? ”
“What exactly do you want?” I asked, surprisingly calmly.
Usually, Lily made my teeth grind. But all I felt right now was indifference.
Lily took a deep breath before coming up the stairs and lowering her voice.
“I know you’re destined for greatness. And I’d love to see you succeed.” She lowered her voice even further, and for a moment I thought I saw something like regret in her eyes. “And you know I’d always try again.”
I should have felt something. Nostalgia, longing… For two years I’d missed Lily, tried to contact her, until Tony had literally had to stop me, because otherwise she could have sued me for harassment.
I’d been so desperate with raising our little girl...
I should have felt relief that she’d finally admitted what I’d only been able to guess from all her attempts to make it back into the family over the years, but there was nothing. Nothing, except indifference.
I held her gaze, stepped forward, leaned toward her, and she parted her lips slightly, reaching out toward me, but I paused.
“That’s the thing, Lily,” I said as quietly as possible. “You always wanted to see me succeed, preferably by your side.” I shook my head and stepped back. “But you never wanted to see me happy.”
I thought I saw disappointment in her eyes as she just stared at me, again, as if I had slapped her.
“You always came to me when I was climbing the career ladder, more and more often as Lara got older, because you knew we wouldn’t have a pesky little kid on our hands. That my attention would belong entirely to you.”
Tears welled up in her eyes, but I couldn’t care less.
“To this day, I’m glad you left us. Your disappearance wasn’t a loss. It was the third-greatest gain of my life.”
She wanted to say something, but I raised my hand.
“I wish you a wonderful life. Really. One in which you rise above yourself and find someone who reflects what you’ve truly been searching for, deep down, all these years.”
She pressed her lips together.
“But please. Don’t ever show your face to me again.”