“He doesn’t mean anything he just said. Give him some time. I’ll talk some sense into him.” Daisy’s sweet voice reached my ears.
I felt numb. “Maybe you should go after him,” I said, burying my hands in my lap. Upset Billy was never a good Billy. I silently cursed myself for worrying about him. It wasn’t like he’d been worried about my feelings a few minutes ago.
Daisy’s lips twitched. “I don’t feel like being around him right now. I love him and we’re having a baby together. But I need a break sometimes. He can be a handful.” Understatement of the century.
“Yeah.” My shoulders shook. I pressed my eyes together. “He’s never going to forgive me.”
“Babe.” Warren’s dry, warm voice wrapped around me. His fingers were on my chin. “He’ll come around.”
“No, he won’t.” The tears started in earnest. “I’ve hurt him. This is what I was afraid of. He’s never going to talk to me again. I can’t lose another parent.” That was when I started hyperventilating. I inhaled, but the breaths didn’t come fast enough, deep enough.
Warren’s hand rubbed circles on my back. “Easy. It’s going to be all right.”
My hands balled into fists and slammed down onto the table, sending silverware dancing. “N-no, it’s not.” I was a mess of snot and tears. “You don’t understand.” Flashes of the dingy apartment I lived in with my mother hurtled across my vision. A couple days might not seem like a long time, but it was an eternity when you were waiting for your mother to come home. And then she hadn’t. The loneliness burrowed under my skin, impossible to shake. I’d never had a real mother. But Billy had made up for that. In his own screwed-up way he’d become mother and father to me, awkwardly explaining periods when my menstrual cycle had started. He’d even thrown me, to my great embarrassment, a ‘welcome to womanhood’ party. And now my father had left me too. There’d be a gaping hole in my life. Everything seemed like it was coming to an end.
“Some people never change,” Gabe scoffed on my left.
Warren’s touch stilled. “What did you say?”
Slowly, Gabe rose from his chair. “I said some people never change. It’s so typical. All you think about is yourself.” Warren also stood.
My tears slowed. I looked up, head bobbing between Gabe and Warren.
“Gabriel, I don’t think now is the time,” Mel started.
Gabe gritted his teeth. “Now’s the perfect time, Ma. You have no idea what this guy has put Addy through. And today takes the cake. If he would’ve just kept his mouth shut about the marriage, Addy wouldn’t be having a nervous breakdown right now.”
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Warren ground out. Part of me wanted to laugh at the unbelievable turn of events. How had this conversation derailed into a pissing contest between Gabe and Warren?
Gabe thumped his chest. “I’m the guy who’s been there for her.” He ticked off the points on his fingers. “When she got so drunk at prom, she spent the night hurling in Jake Swanson’s bathroom. Guess who held her hair back? Me. Her first day of school in New York when she got so lost on the train she cried. Guess who MapQuested that shit and navigated her home? Me. After she got home from Rome when she was in the hospital…” Gabe trailed off, realizing his mistake. He’d just lambasted Warren for spilling secrets, and Gabe had just let the mother of all mine slip. Gabe’s mouth closed on an audible click.
Warren caught the mistake. “In the hospital for what?”
I shut my eyes tight, willing this to go away, to all be a bad dream.
“Addy?” Daisy asked.
I wiped my cheeks. When I opened my eyes Warren’s face filled my vision. I couldn’t see the others, but I knew they were still there. Jett, Chord, Turner, Lix, Ash, Derren, Pete, Mel, Gabe and Daisy, all about to bear witness to my greatest secret. I wouldn’t call it a shame, because I could never be embarrassed about the life I’d carried and lost. Still, I softened my voice when I spoke, pretending it was just Warren and I. “Remember how sick I was feeling in Rome?” Warren jerked his chin. “The whole plane ride I was really sick, could barely stay awake and my stomach was cramping so bad. When we deboarded it got worse. I passed out at baggage claim. Gabe was there to pick us up.” I didn’t tell him about the blood, how it had soaked my jeans. How there was so much I’d been sure I was dying. “I woke up in the hospital. It wasn’t just a stomach bug. I was pregnant. But the pregnancy was ectopic. That’s when the baby implants in the Fallopian tube. Anyway, if it’s not caught early, the baby starts growing and since it’s in the wrong place, it causes all sorts of problems.”
“Oh, honey,” Mel said.
Daisy reached across the table, taking my cold hand.
“You were pregnant?” Warren asked. “With my baby?”
I nodded mutely.
“Were you ever going to tell me?”
I shot a pleading look to Warren. His expression was an odd mixture of disbelief and anger. “Of course I was going to tell you,” I said.
His jaw clenched. “When?”
“I don’t know.” My heart raced. “When it felt right, when it felt like time.” When things felt more stable. My life was characterized by instability. Maybe that was why I built such elaborate lies, to keep what structure I did have safe and sound.
War didn’t like that answer. In fact, he looked like he didn’t like anything about me. “Time, that’s always your excuse, isn’t it? You’ve had so many opportunities. I get not telling me in the beginning, because you were pissed. But we’ve been good since then.”
“It’s painful to talk about,” I said.
“Yeah.” He nodded. “It’s painful to hear.” He wiped a hand down his face and threw his napkin on the table.
“War,” I whispered, eyes beseeching.
“I just need some time to process this. You understand, don’t you? Time is kind of a specialty of yours, isn’t it?” Oh, I didn’t like the sound of his voice, so scathing and sarcastic it burned.
“Okay,” I said robotically.
War left. I felt cold all over. My eyes traveled the room, everyone looked away.
“Addy, I’m sorry,” Gabe said. His voice sounded funny, like he was underwater. Drowning.
In Greece, Lily had dragged me to some obscure art gallery just to see a single painting. The Fall of Icarus was tiny, like sheet-of-paper tiny, and hung on its very own white wall. I’d stared at it for at least twenty minutes, my eyes blurring with oil pastels, while Lily whispered the myth. Daedalus, Icarus’s father, had fashioned his son a pair of fragile wings made of wax so he could fly. He’d cautioned his son to keep close to the earth, to the sea, lest he get too close to the sun and melt away. Icarus, uncaring of his father’s warning, flew high into the sky. Entranced by the sun, he neared it. Too soon, his wings began to melt and Icarus fell to his death. “It’s about wanting too much,” Lily had said, interpreting the myth.
As I stared at the group around me, I realized I was sort of like Icarus. I’d flown too close to the sun. I’d wanted too much. I’d been selfish. And I’d lost it all. Everything that mattered. A father. A husband. Friends. My self-respect.
I couldn’t bear to look at the group’s faces anymore. They were all the same, masks of pity. So, I did what I did best when the going got rough. What my father had taught me to do. I ran away.
In front of the restaurant, I held up a hand, summoning a taxi. The sky opened up and it began to rain, soaking my hair and clothing. That was good, the drops would hide my tears, give me an excuse for my red face. Inside the cab was warm but I shivered. Through blue lips, I directed the cabbie to the tour bus parking lot. As soon as the cab rolled to a stop, I hopped out without paying, ordering him to stay put. I’d only be a minute. Waving at security, I slipped through the gate and onto the Wanks and Janks bus. As quick as possible, I packed, jamming shirts and pants into my duffel. On a half run, I exited the bus.
Oomph.
As I descended the narrow staircase, my body collided with a hard chest. Murse Kelly blocked my path.
“Where you off to, lass?” he asked. A flash of lightning lit the sky followed closely by a roll of thunder.
“Home. I need to go home,” I said through chattering teeth. Dammit, tears threatened again. I’d thought I had them under control. I’d been wrong. Nothing was in my control.
“I think you should stay here,” he said.
Fury pierced my sadness. “I want to be alone, Kelly. I don’t need you or your advice anymore. You heard Billy at dinner, he’s written me off. Consider yourself relieved of all duties.”
“Your da is mad, lass. He won’t be forever.”
“You’re right,” I said. Agreement seemed the fastest way to get rid of him. Murse Kelly was wrong. Billy wouldn’t come around. I knew my father, and he could hold a grudge. He hadn’t spoken to his own parents for nearly a decade. A falling out over money. “But I’m not staying.” I waited for Kelly to let me pass. I wanted somewhere private, where I could lick my wounds and hide.
“All right, if that’s your desire, I won’t stop you.” From his pocket, Kelly withdrew a white card. “Here’s all my contact info. You text me and let me know you’re safe. And remember, if anyone hurts you, I know six ways to kill a man and make it look like an accident.”
I blinked. Kelly shuffled to the side and I scooted past him. I hopped back into the cab, clutching my bag to my chest, right over my aching heart.
“Where to?” the cabbie asked, eyeing me in the rearview mirror.
“Closest airport,” I managed to get out. Sadness was burning a path up my throat, clogging it, suffocating me.