Thirty-One
Payday
I’d rather get my ass kicked five times a day every day for the rest of my life than feel the pain I felt in that moment. When Lilly walked out of my door and I knew I’d never see her face again, the small part of me that had started to flourish because of her suddenly died.
Just when I was starting to feel alive again, Lilly pulled out a metaphorical gun and shot me at close range in the heart. It was like she didn’t even hear me begging her. She just stared off into nothing like I’d broken her and deep down I knew I had. It wasn’t enough that I was shattered into a million pieces my entire life, I had to drag a perfectly put-together person into my world and shatter her as well.
My legs suddenly gave out on me and I collapsed onto the front porch. The fact that I was never going to see her again ate at my heart. Parts of me screamed to go after her, but I knew she didn’t deserve that, nor did she want that. She deserved better. She was too good for a piece of shit like me and I’d give her a chance at a better life without me. It was the least I could do.
I was about to lose what little bit I did have. I had nothing but broken parts of a man to offer her.
Her tail lights disappeared down the road and felt my insides take their final breath. She was gone. It was over and the best thing for me to do was let her leave.
I went back inside and collapsed on the couch again. Part of me wanted to go drown myself in Dad’s liquor cabinet, but I didn’t deserve to be numb. I deserved to hurt, deserved to feel my heart crumble inside of me.
I don’t know how long I sat there staring off into space. Time ceased to exist, but at some point, I heard Jenny talking to me. She was snapping her fingers in my face trying to get me to flinch.
“Dev, you’re scaring me, damn it! What’s going on? I swear to Christ you’re gonna drive me to drink!”
Then she reached back and smacked me across the face. The sting of her tiny palm shook me as it snapped my head to the side. I wanted to beg her to hit me again. I deserved to have my ass whipped.
“She’s gone,” I croaked.
“What do you mean she’s gone?” She didn’t even ask who I was talking about, she just knew. “What did you, Devin?” She sounded panicked.
Not only did I hurt Lilly, I dragged her into my world and let my dad and Jenny fall in love with her, too. They were going to hurt, too. They were losing her, too. How could I not have seen this coming? Lilly had become a part of our family and I had single-handedly ripped away Jenny’s sister and my dad’s daughter. That’s how they looked at her. That’s what she had become to them.
I couldn’t even bring myself to tell Jenny what I had done. I didn’t want her to see what her brother really was; I didn’t want to see what I really was anymore. I was beneath any descriptive word I could think of, worse than a piece of shit, worse than selfish.
I didn’t even respond. I just got up, grabbed my car keys, and left. I don’t know where I planned on going, but I ended up parked outside of Lilly’s apartment. I didn’t get out of the car and bang on her door. I didn’t go beg her like I wanted to, I Just sat there. Somehow, knowing she was within reach soothed me.
At some point, I fell asleep sitting up in the driver’s seat of my car. When I woke up there was a bird on the hood staring at me, judging me. I worked the kink out of my neck and cranked the engine. There was no need to prolong the inevitable. I had to go home and tell my family it was time to start packing. We had living arrangements to make and I had to start job hunting as soon as possible. There was no way in Hell I’d take that bitch’s money even if she did offer it to me.
When I got home Dad was sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast. I fell into the chair across from him and it slid across the linoleum floor.
“Well, you look like Hell,” he said as he scooped up a fork full of eggs.
“Maybe that’s because I spent the night there.” I sounded as hollow as I felt.
“You need to eat somethin’ and get a shower. You can’t win a woman back smelling like a dog. Then I want you to take the rest of the day off and go on over there and get our girl.” He got up and rinsed his plate in the sink.
“Dad, she’ll never forgive me for what I’ve done. You don’t know the half. I wouldn’t blame her if she never talked to me again. I love Lilly, so I’m going to let her go.” I rested my elbow on the table.
“I wasn’t talking about Lilly, although I sure wish y’all would patch things up. I meant our other girl.”
“You been drinking already this morning?”
“Nah, I’m sober. I found this on the floor.” He pulled a black and white picture from his pocket and slid it across the table to me. “I’m talkin’ ‘bout this girl.”
I looked down at the ultrasound picture. Printed in white digital font was the word Girl with a dotted line pointing to a gray blob in the in middle of the fuzzy picture. The name Lilly Sheffield was printed vertically down the side of the picture.
At first I was confused. Lilly has specifically said she couldn’t get pregnant. Yet, there was her name printed very obviously on the picture.
It looked like a blurry mess, but I could make out a little leg and a tiny foot, and in that moment, my world fell around me like tiny fragments of bright, white light. It made my skin tingle as it rained down on me. The oxygen I was about to exhale was held hostage in my lungs by my heart that had suddenly quit beating.
Lilly came yesterday to tell me something. She wanted to tell me we were going to have a baby. She was probably ecstatic, she was probably the happiest she had ever been in her entire life when she showed up at my door, and I had gut punched her with the truth. I had squashed that happiness in an instant.
I had made her cry. I put her in a state of shock. I’d seen the shock on her face. I’d hurt her more than she’d probably ever been hurt in her life. My now ex-girlfriend, the love of my life, the woman who walking around with my heart nestled snuggly inside of her, and I had made her cry.
I felt myself snap. I stood quickly, and my chair left a skid mark on the linoleum. Dad was saying something to me, but I had tunnel hearing and nothing made it through to my brain. My joints felt stiff as I moved across the house to the front door.
I ended up at Lilly’s apartment, but she wasn’t home. I’d go to every place I could think of until I found her. I needed her to breathe my existence back into me and to gather all the tiny fragments of life that were floating around me and put them back together.
I found myself at her mother’s front door. An older man in a suit answered.
“I need to speak to Lilly Sheffield.”
“Follow me.”
He turned to walk away, and like a pup, I followed behind him. He was taking me to see Lilly and when I got to her I’d refuse any other option but for us to be together.
The last time I was in this house I was kicked out, and I’d probably get kicked out again, but I had to try anything and everything to get her back. Yes, for the baby, but also because since the moment she walked out my door I hadn’t felt alive. I wanted to live.
When we got to a set of brown paneled doors, the older man stepped aside and motioned for me to enter. The door was heavy and silent as it opened. The pit of my stomach was telling me that it felt wrong, and when my eyes connected with Lilly’s mom instead of Lilly, I knew why.
Like daggers, her eyes pierced me. Had this been a cartoon, fire would be flying from them and burning me to death. I’m sure my eyes mirrored hers as I stared her down, unwilling to blink.
“I hope you’re proud of yourself,” she hissed.
“Are you proud of yourself?”
She was sitting behind a desk, stacks of unopened invitations laid out in front of her. As I took her in, I noticed her tense shoulders, the purple circles around her eyes, and a few misplaced pieces of hair. She was upset, and that let me know that she had seen Lilly.
I moved closer to her desk and stood there.
“Where is she?” I asked.
She didn’t respond. Instead, she reached into the desk draw and pulled out a piece of paper. She held it out to me and I snatched it from her.
“I believe this is what you came here for. Take it and get out of our lives.” She turned away as if dismissing me.
I stared down at the check in my hand. It was written for fifty thousand dollars. The bitch was paying me off. That little, thin piece of paper would take care of most of my problems. I could cash it and pay off the loan and everything would just be fucking great, except it wouldn’t be. As long as Lilly was gone, nothing would ever be good again.
All the pain I felt was because of this stupid check. A sudden streak of anger rang through my body, and before I knew it, I was ripping the check up in Mrs. Sheffield’s face. I’d live on the streets before I cashed that check and I knew that both Dad and Jenny would agree. They’d want nothing to do with that money just like I wanted nothing to do with it. I wanted Lilly.
“What are you doing? Are you insane?” she asked me.
“I don’t want your damn money.” I continued ripping the check into tiny pieces.
“But you’ll lose everything!” The look on her face was almost comical, and had I been in a laughing mood, I would’ve laughed.
I was in no laughing mood, I was on a mission.
“I’ve already lost everything. Now, tell me where she is.”
She didn’t respond. She just sat there staring back at me like I was from another planet.
“Fine, I’ll keep searching until I find her.”
I turned to walk away. I was done with that bitch and all the heartache she had caused Lilly and me.
“Wait,” she called after me.
“What?” I growled, as I turned back to face her.
She shook her head for a minute like she was in shock.
“You really love her, don’t you?” she asked softly.
“What do you think?” I yelled as I started toward the door again.
“Wait, I have something for you.” She came around her desk and stood before me.
Her eyes were warmer and her small smile looked real. For a second, I was taken aback by her sudden change in facial expressions.
She held out a piece of paper and as much as I wanted to snatch it from her and rip it to sheds, too, I stopped and read it. It was the deed to the house and shop. The loan had been paid in full and the property was now in my dad’s name.
Fury ripped through me again and I almost did rip the paper up.
Who the hell did this bitch thing she was?
“I told you! I don’t want your charity! You own it now!” I said as I balled up the paper and stuffed it into her hand.
“Devin, I didn’t do this. Lilly told me to make sure you got this.”
“I don’t understand? If you didn’t…” she cut me off.
“I live here, I drive fancy cars, and I shop until I’m blue in the face, but the fact of the matter is, none of this is mine. Lilly owns everything, all the homes, all the cars, and all the money, it’s hers.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My face was stuck in shock. Tears were stinging my eyes. How could she not have told me?
“Lilly doesn’t like people to know,” she answered, like she had read my mind. “When my parents died we weren’t on very good terms. They weren’t happy with the way I was raising Lilly. Truth be told, they had a right to disagree. I was a horrible mother, still am.” A rare flash of weakness struck her eyes. “They left everything to her. She still likes to live like she’s not rich, but the truth is, Lilly has more money than she could spend in a lifetime.”
All that time she was a rich heiress and I was just a dirty garage boy. There I was thinking I could do right by her and make her happy, when the truth was she needed nothing from me.
“I can’t believe this…”
“Devin, she loves you. She’s hurting and I’m going to do something, for once in my life, that’ll make her happy. I’m going to do exactly what she asked me not to and I’m going tell you where she is.” She stopped and took a breath. “She was making a stop at Franklin’s to quit her job, and then she’ll be staying at our beach house for few weeks until things blow over. That’s where you’ll find her.”
She leaned over and scribbled something on a piece of paper then handed it to me.
“Here’s the address. Go make her happy.” She smiled sadly.
In no time, I was in my car. I had to make one stop and then I was headed to the beach to get the love of my life back.