CHAPTER 12 |

Giving In & Possibilities

 

PATRICK

 

We met for the second time when we were thirty.

I thought about it a lot; the night that changed everything. The night that solidified my separation from the only woman I would ever love.

It happened three weeks after Kinsey had broken up with me. Three weeks after she had just ended things without so much as a tear. Christ, I had seen the girl cry over a fallen hot dog, but she broke up with me with less emotion than a goddamn rock. It was a front, I realized when I was older and less angry, but that didn’t matter then. Not when I was twenty, not when I was stupid and brokenhearted.

After three weeks had gone by, I still hadn’t collected enough of my pride to call her, nor had she called me. I could just see it in my mind: all the guys she was out partying with, doing things that weren’t in her character, and I convinced myself that she was a changed person. The person I knew never would’ve broken up with me, never would’ve let weeks go by without asking how I was.

During one of those particularly spiteful days, when I couldn’t stand being inside my own head, I was hanging in the River Canyon Park with a couple buddies, when Christine rolled up in her daddy’s car. She wiggled her hips all the way over to me, draping herself on my arm, like she was making herself at home.

“Hey Pat,” she said, pressing herself against me.

I despised being called Pat. “Pat” was something you did to dogs, but I neglected to correct her. That was something I’d also regret for ten feckin’ years.

“Christine.”  

“So, you’re single, huh?”

“Took you this long to find out?” I was genuinely surprised. News traveled fast in that town, and after three weeks, I was pretty sure all of Connecticut knew when River Canyon’s greatest love story was snubbed out.

Her nails dragged along my inner forearm, her fingers intertwined with mine.

Her bony fingers felt wrong and knobby, and I didn’t close my hand around hers. Yet, I didn’t pull away.

“I only just got home from visiting my family in Jersey,” she explained, but I didn’t care.

Nah, I was too busy noticing the way her pebbled nipples felt against my arm. Too busy acknowledging an awakening in my jeans, as my eyes roamed the tops of her breasts, bubbling over the neckline of her low-cut shirt. Too busy paying attention to her hand, pulling mine to the hem of her short skirt, brushing my fingers against the smooth skin of her inner thighs.

She hadn’t come to give her sympathies or rekindle some old friendship of the past.

Nah, she came to claim her prize, because she knew she was going to win.

Christine stood on her toes, pressing my hand closer between her legs. She ogled me, gauging my reaction. My face wasn’t giving her one, but it didn’t have to. She noticed the shifting of my legs, the bulge straining against the zipper of my jeans.

“I have a bottle of vodka in my car. You wanna go drink it with me?”

Long story short: I said yes.

Longer story short: She had lied about the birth control, and I was too wasted to think twice about it.

So, I thought about it a lot, that pivotal moment in my life that forced me to grow up faster than I had intended. About what I could have done differently, about what any of us might have done differently had we known exactly what the consequences would have been. But then, I’d look at the kid who always made me laugh, despite it all, and I’d wonder if I would even want to do anything at all.

For a long time, I’d say to myself, “Paddy, you made your stupid choices, and your marriage is shite, but ya got yourself a wonderful girl out of the deal, and that girl is your life. At the end of the day, that’s all that matters, and ya did the right thing.”

But then, ten years after I exchanged vows with the manipulative witch of River Canyon, I saw her, and I knew there was one thing I would have done differently: I never would have let ten years go by without seeing her face.

Hell, I don’t even know what I would have done to change the outcome of those missing years, but anything would have been better than lying on that fold-out couch, wondering what she was doing. Who she was seeing. If she was happy.

I hoped to Christ she was happy. One of us deserved to be.

 

❧

 

I got my answers two days after she had come back to River Canyon. Two days after I promised her sister I’d keep my distance, and I had, I swear. But I couldn’t do anything about the chance meeting.

A fitting connection, considering our first.

I mean, we never had a choice. We never stood a chance.

I had been walking through the aisles of the Fisch Market with Meghan, stocking up on food for the house and the makings for s’mores. I remember turning toward the alcohol section to grab a six-pack of Bud when I saw her, picking up a case of that girly shite I could instantly see her drinking. And you know, I had known she was back, but Christ, nothing prepared me for what it’d be like to see her again.

She was beautiful. Older, curvier in all the right places, and beautiful. So goddamn beautiful, I could barely keep myself together.

“Kinsey,” was all I could manage in a voice I barely recognized as my own.  

Meghan looked up at me, eyes same color as mine, and they narrowed with scrutiny at the gruff strain in my tone.  

Kinsey turned to look at me, appearing at once cool and collected, yet panicked and uncertain. “Patrick.”

My knees locked at the sound of her voice. The sound of my name rolling on her tongue, passing through her lips. Pulsing my heart back to life with the gnawing ache of having gone so long without it.

Her eyes shifted to the young girl at my side, then back at me, acknowledgement shadowing her face.

“Daddy?”

Right, introductions.

I untied my tongue, fighting my gaze to not stare at her and the figure that had only gotten better over the years. “Uh, Meghan, this is a, ehm, an old friend, Kinsey.” I hated calling her my “old friend.” What an insult, what an understatement. “Kinsey, this is my daughter, Meghan.”

I don’t know what I had expected. There was no way she was going to have a knock-out fight with a nine-year-old, but I didn’t expect the smile to spread her lips. Her nice smile, not the forced one, and I sighed with relief.

“It’s nice to meet you, Meghan.”

“How do you know my dad?” Meghan narrowed her eyes at Kinsey with nine-year-old suspicion. Kids were so perceptive, I learned, and I wondered if she could sense why Kinsey had stiffened, why my palms were starting to sweat.

“I’ve known your dad for a really long time. We grew up together.”  

“Do you know my mom, too?”

Ah, Christ, I thought, wiping a hand over my mouth. “Meg …”

“I used to.” Kinsey didn’t miss a beat. Bless her.

“How come I’ve never seen you before?” Meghan asked, looking between the two of us with question.

“Oh, ehm—”

“I was away for a while,” Kinsey said, with the same sweet smile, and Christ, I loved her then.

I loved her always.

“Oh, cool. But you’re back?” I shot a quick glance at the short, red-headed Queen of Twenty Questions, and I mentally fist-bumped her for fishing for info.

“My dad is very sick right now.”

Kinsey smiled again—tighter, smaller—and she revealed the sadness she had been covering. I knew about her father, the heart attack he had suffered, and I suspected that was where the need for booze had come in. I fought my feet to keep from moving forward, fought my arms from wrapping around her.

The most I could allow was to incline my head toward her. “I heard about your father. I’m sorry. If there’s anything I can do, just—”

“We’re fine, thanks,” she said with a tight-lipped smile. The forced one.

“What’s wrong with him?” Meghan asked in a hushed voice.

Kinsey looked at her, and her smile changed. “He had a heart attack, honey.”

“Oh,” she said, and looked up to me. “Like Grandpa, right?”

“Yep,” I nodded, watching Kinsey’s face fall with the mention of Da.

“Your dad?”

“Yeah, a few years ago. He’s fine now, though. You’d never know it happened.”

She nodded, a shred of warmth lighting her dark eyes. “Good.”

“Are you going away again?” Meghan changed the subject for us, steering the conversation back to more useful topics.

“Um, well, my dad’s not gonna be able to go back to work, so I’m moving back to take over his store.”

My stomach fluttered with a sudden onset of jittery nerves, and I spoke before Meghan had a chance to continue her interrogation. “Wait. You’re back?”

She nodded reluctantly, dropping her eyes to the floor. “Yeah.”

“For good?”

“Yes, Patrick. For good.” She forced a smile.

That was all I needed to know.

“Well, ehm, Meghan, your mother’s gonna be expectin’ ya home for dinner.” I began to walk backward, steering my daughter along with me. My eyes caught Kinsey’s, her lips parted with the confirmation that I still held a shred of control over her, and I smiled. “I will be seein’ you very soon, Kinsey.”

It was a promise.

 

❧

 

Later that night, I went up to Christine’s room and knocked on the door. I shook my head at the sheer concept of needing to knock on the door that should’ve been my bedroom. The sight of Kinsey had reminded me of just how absurd my life had been all those years. Of how good it could have been, had she not left me stranded.

“Ugh, it’s you.” My wife groaned at the sight of me, never resisting the urge to roll her eyes.

“Hello to you too.”

“What do you want?”

“I need to talk to you for a second.” I pushed my way past her and into the room before she could reply, and I demanded, “Close the door.”

“Are you here for sex? Because I am not—”

I snorted. “When have I ever wanted that from you?”

“I can think—”

“Christine, just close the damn door, please.”

With another famed eye roll, she pushed the door shut and turned around, crossing her arms over her chest. Her features softened for a moment. “Is Meghan okay?”

At the mention of the one thing in our lives we both cared about, I assured her with a single nod. “She’s fine,” I said, my voice matching her expression.

“Good,” and she went hard again, scowling at me for disturbing her peace. “What do you want then?”

“A divorce.”

Holy shite, it felt so good to say it! My shoulders released ten years’ worth of tension with one little word, and I swear I stood taller. The world looked brighter, the colors came to life, and hell, if I had cracked a window open, a barrage of talking animals probably would have congratulated me.  

Christine’s jaw fell open. “You want a divorce? Why?”

“Why?” I scoffed. “Oh, gee, I don’t know, Christine. Maybe because we’re both miserable? Maybe because we both hate everything about each other, aside from our kid?”

“That’s not why.” She shook her head, a smirk twisting the mouth I only kissed on holidays for pictures. “She’s back.”

“What?” I tugged at the hair on the back of my head, dropping my eyes to the floor.

“Kinsey.”

“How do you know that?”

“Meghan told me.”

That little backstabber.

And there wasn’t any sense in denying it then. “Yeah, she is.”

“And you want a divorce, so you can be with her.” She laughed at that. “You’re so predictable.”

“Knock it off. I’m not askin’ to be with her. She’s here, because her father is sick.” I clenched my fists at my sides, fighting off the insatiable temptation to punch her in the face as she performed another body-consuming eye roll. “I want a divorce, because, I don’t want to be married to you.”

“You never wanted to be married to me, Pat, but you never asked for a divorce before either. Admit that you’re only asking me now, this very moment, because of her.”

My eyes closed. Who knew I was so transparent? “Fine.”

“Fine,” she repeated, wiping her hands of me. What was it about women being able to let me go so easily? “I want you out tomorrow.”

“Done.”

I turned to leave and pack my shite when she said, “Oh, and Pat?”

“My name isn’t Pat.” I could have floated, I felt so light.

She groaned. “Fine. Patrick.”

“Yeah?” I said over my shoulder, flashing her my best smile.

“She’ll never take you back, you know. You’re damaged goods now, you have baggage, and you’re throwing this away for nothing.”

“Well, see, that’s the thing, Christine,” I said. “You have to have somethin’ in the first place, to have anything to throw away.”

I left the room, and closed the door on shite marriages and stupid childish mistakes, and I stepped into the next room of lawyers, child support, and tiny apartments.

And in that small, new room, there was a walk-in closet full of hope and possibilities, and as long as she was back, they were endless.