Aussie: A Bad Boy Second Chance Romance (12 page)

“Well, what did they say?” I asked her.

Dawn was in tears, crying uncontrollably. She was getting out the story in bits and pieces. She drove to my apartment this way.  Hadn’t texted, hadn’t called like I asked, at least not until she was five minutes away from my place.

She sprawled out across my lap as we sat on the sofa. She looked up at me, about to speak, but the sobs grew bigger. Finally, she choked it out. “They didn’t say anything. They just walked away. So I left, and came here.”

A strand of hair fell across her cheek and stuck to her. I slipped it free and tucked it behind her ear.

She was finally getting control of her voice. “The crazy thing is, at first I thought it was Aunt Jackie.”

“Why would it be your Aunt Jackie? Does she know about us?” I asked, confused.

We were silent for a few moments.

“I told Aunt Jackie about us,” she admitted. “Please don’t be mad at me.”

Hell, I wasn’t mad at her. I knew she needed to talk to somebody. “And?”

“She said I should stay away from you…”

“Jesus, her too? I thought she liked me.”

Dawn nodded. “She does. I know she does. The way she was telling me to stay away…it was like it was for both of us, not just me.”

“What else did she say? Did she at least hint about the reason?”

She shrugged, then sighed. “I don’t know. Just said it would be better for both of us if we weren’t together.”

“You didn’t ask why?” My tone had been more harsh than I’d intended. I didn’t mean to accuse her. It didn’t seem to faze Dawn.

She brought her hand to her face and wiped her eyes. I handed her another tissue. She’d gone through at least a dozen already. They were piled on my coffee table and a few were on the floor.

She dabbed her eyes again. “I did ask why. But you know how I told you she was always someone I could go to and tell anything to and she’d never tell anyone?”

I nodded.

“Well,” she said, “that’s why she said she couldn’t tell me. She said it was something she knew but couldn’t reveal.”

This was starting to piss me off. All of this was about me, about Dawn and me, actually. And there was something that everyone but us knew.

Dawn clearly read my increasing anger and frustration. She reached up and put her open hand on my cheek. Her soft palm caressed me, trying to soothe me.

I took a deep breath, turning my attention to the anger I felt over this whole situation. “What the fuck is wrong with Scott? This is like some high school…actually middle school bullshit.”

She screamed in frustration. “I’m done! I can’t do this. Can we not talk about this right now? I mean, maybe later?”

I glanced away, and tried to pocket my emotions.

She changed the subject without waiting for me to respond. “Tell me about work.”

I didn’t want to talk about work. I reminded myself that Dawn had had a rough day already, and was emotionally drained.

“I met the camera operator and the second assistant camera guy today. We’re going to scout locations in San Francisco in two weeks.”

“Really? What’s the movie?”

“Can’t say. It’s classified.”

Dawn smiled for the first time that night, and she lightly slapped me on my chest. “Tell me.”

I told her about the movie, and how I’d been able to see an early version of the script. I told her about the conference call I sat in on with Rebecca, Grant, and a couple of people from Showtime who were interested in talking movie rights for their channel, rather than having it released in theaters. I told her about the discussion afterward, and how I sat there silently and listened to Grant talk with his production team about the growing trend toward releasing movies on TV and the Internet. There was talk of making Showtime wait a little while, so maybe Netflix, Hulu, or any of the other streaming services could bid on it.

“The business side of it was interesting,” I said, “but I’m glad I don’t have to deal with it.”

Dawn watched me talk, listened with enthusiasm. I went on about how my love of photography and videography was rekindled, and how I had an actual shot at doing something with it professionally.

“And I talked to Grant about school,” I said.

Dawn’s eyebrows raised. “What did he say? Let me guess, he’s going to fund it?”

“Nope. Exactly the opposite. He said, and I quote, ‘It’s a waste of time and money. You’ll learn everything you need to know working for me.’”

“Wow.”

That’s what I had thought when he told me. The guy knew what he was talking about, no doubt. Who was I to challenge his knowledge? I was surprised because I found myself relieved that a degree in filmmaking or photography/videography wasn’t necessary, but also because the way he
said it
made it sound like he was making me a long-term promise of employment.

He confirmed my thoughts not long after. “I like what I see so far in your work. Don’t fuck up and you’ll be writing your own ticket in five years.”

So things were looking great for me professionally. It was the first major positive thing that happened to me since getting clean.

That, and Dawn, of course. But now my relationship with Dawn was threatened by something someone else knew, something no one would tell her.

And since they wouldn’t tell her, I had no choice but to see if they’d tell me.

I woke up the next morning in Luke’s bed, his arms draped over me. We were facing each other, but he was still asleep. I watched him sleep for a minute.  His face was relaxed and calm.

As for me, every muscle in my body was tense. The ache was so deep inside of me, I was sure it had taken up residence. But slowly, after watching Luke resting so peacefully, I found myself relaxing a little bit.

And then his eyes shot open quickly. “I can’t sleep when you’re staring at me like that.”

I flinched, startled. “Sorry.”

He smiled. “I’m kidding. I could wake up every day for the rest of my life with you staring at me.”

Blood rushed to my head. My heart pounded in response to his words. We hadn’t discussed our future, dating, anything. We just sort of fell into it. I didn’t want to push that issue, though. There was plenty to settle in the meantime. So I just said, “Promise?”

He nodded without saying anything. He didn’t have to. I trusted him, and he knew it.

*****

I’d packed a bag before leaving my parents’ house last night. It no longer felt like my home. I took at least five days’ worth of clothes with me. I knew I’d eventually have to go back, but I was still reeling, so angry over the entire ordeal.

Luke knew he had to tell the wine distributor’s office he was quitting. No two-week notice, he was just leaving. It was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up, and they’d either understand or they wouldn’t.

I showed up to work just as the store was opening. I went a little later, right around nine o’clock to avoid the chit-chat that filled the time before the doors opened. Luckily, we’d received a shipment, so there was a ton of work to be done in getting all the new stuff out on the sales floor. It was easy enough to keep to myself most of the morning.

During a fifteen-minute break, I pulled my phone out of my purse and checked for messages. There were two missed calls, both from my parents’ home number. They’d left a voicemail with each call. I deleted both without listening.

I hesitated, then finally sent a text to my mom’s cell phone.
Need space. I’ll talk to you when I’m ready. No clue when that will be.

Next, I needed to tackle another issue. Scott. The more I thought about what he’d done, the more I knew I wouldn’t make it through the day if I didn’t get this out of my system.

When I dialed, he picked up immediately.

“Thank God. I was just about to come see you.” There was relief in his tone.

“Don’t bother.”

“What?”

“Don’t come see me,” I said. “Not at work, not anywhere.”

“We have a lot to talk about.”

I was in the food court, eating a salad. More like just picking at it. I had no appetite. I kept my voice low and firm. Through clenched teeth, I growled, “No, we don’t. We have nothing to talk about.”

He cut me off. “Ugh, you called me.”

“Yeah, but not because we have anything to talk about. I don’t care what you have to say. I don’t give a shit if you think you had some good reason for doing what you did. I especially don’t care if you think you had any chance of apologizing and making this right.”

“Dawn, I am sorry. That’s what I was coming to tell you. That, and you’re making a huge mistake.”

“Am I?” I was flippant.

“Yeah,” he said, harshly. “Luke is a loser and you know it.”

“You don’t even know him.”

I heard a door close, and figured he’d ducked into an office or maybe stepped outside. “I know he’s a loser, that’s what I know. You want to be with a guy who does the shit he does?”

“That was years ago,” I corrected.

“Once a loser, always a loser,” Scott said. I could feel the heavy smugness and condescension in his voice.

I snapped back. “That’s bullshit. He’s changed.”

“He’s a piece of shit. You deserve better. He’ll just end up hurting you.”

I closed my eyes, squinting hard, trying to contain the rage building inside. “He’s never done anything with the intention of hurting me. But you have. The one person I thought all along would never do anything to hurt me, and you did.”

“I’m trying to save you from—”

“I don’t need saving!” My cheeks flushed. I was furious.

“I think you do.”

“Fuck you, Scott.” I whispered, trying not to cause a scene in the food court.

“Oh nice. Come on, Dawn. Let’s be adults about this.”

I laughed. Couldn’t help it. It just came out in a burst, loudly, drawing the attention of the people sitting two tables away from me. “Adults? After what you just said?” I lowered my voice. “Maybe you should have decided to be an adult before you went to my parents like you were still in middle school. And you know what? You might as well be in middle school, because even though you have a good job and your own place, that’s all just an outward appearance. Inside, you’re still a child.”

A woman wearing a mall staff t-shirt came around picking up trays with trash on them. She looked at me, smiled, and I forced one back.

Scott was silent for a moment. “Ouch. That’s pretty harsh.”

“It’s the truth. And I’m not sorry for saying it. The only thing I’m sorry about is that I didn’t recognize it sooner. I think of all the time I wasted with you…” I let my voice trail off, not finishing the sentence. I’d said what I needed to say. Yes, I wanted to say more, unleash the emotional wrath he was responsible for creating.

There was no way I would have ever treated him this way before yesterday. I didn’t have any ill will toward him until he did what he did. I suppose I could have felt a little guilty for saying what I said, and for how I said it, but he’d brought it on himself.

I had every right to vent at him.

It hit me in that instant. It wasn’t worth it. All this turmoil. He wasn’t worth it. He was emotionally stunted, stuck in his teen years, unable to grow and mature like a man, unable to face a relationship like an adult.

How did I not see it sooner? That’s why we’d been drifting so aimlessly, so devoid of passion and purpose in our relationship.

The last couple of weeks had been a revelation on so many fronts, both personally and professionally. While Scott was holding me back, imposing a limit on my life, I was just as guilty for letting it happen. No more. I was taking my life back.

“I have to go. Don’t call me back. Don’t try to contact me again. No joke. I’m finished with you. The end.”

He said nothing, and I hung up.

When I got home, she was waiting for me. I hadn’t noticed her until I was at the top of the steps. She’d wrapped her arms around her knees, and they were pulled tight to her chest. Her head was buried, face down. It didn’t matter, I recognized her hair.

When she heard my footsteps, she tipped her face up slowly.  “Hey.” There was a heaviness to her voice. A lost little girl looked up at me, and she drew out the greeting.

She’d been crying. There were no tears left, but the red circles under her eyes gave her away. She wore a blank expression.

“Megan, what are you doing here?”

She tried to get up, but started to tip over. She caught herself with one hand, and decided staying seated was easier.

“You need to leave. You can’t be here,” I said.

“But, Luke—”

“No.” I walked closer to her. “Leave.”

I noticed the trembling. I saw it in her hands first, then her legs. She was sweating, way more than she should have been for just sitting there, and it wasn’t even very hot outside.

I knew then what she wanted. Money. She was in withdrawal, probably out of cash, and in desperate need of getting a fix of…something. Whatever she was on these days.

“Help me out, Luke.”

I didn’t say anything. I just reached down and put my hands under her arms. God, she was light. She’s lost so much weight that her body no longer had much of a shape to it. Just a skeleton with minimal flesh. She felt hard and bony as I picked her up. She managed to sling her arms around my neck.

She mumbled, “I stopped using five days ago. I need…I…” Her voice trailed off.

I didn’t know if she was going to say she needed help or she needed drugs. I didn’t say anything. I just kept moving so I could do what needed to be done.

The last thing I wanted was for any of my neighbors to see this. I’d been clean for a long time, nobody knew about my past, and there was no way I was going to let this girl bring any of that stigma back to me.

I walked down the stairs, carrying her in my arms. “Where’s your car?”

She pointed. “Right there, but I can’t drive.”

I was annoyed. It wasn’t a good time. Not that it ever was when it came to Megan, but I didn’t want to deal with this bullshit. Not now. “I know, but it can’t be in a reserved space. I’ll move it.”

“Can we go up to your place?” she asked, starting to cry.

“Nope. I’m taking you to the hospital.”

I set her down in the grass next to the sidewalk and she began to shake. Her eyes rolled back in her head. Her arms and legs curled into impossible looking contortions. It was a seizure. I recognized the signs from back in my rehab days.

Shit. That was a controlled environment, with medical professionals nearby.

Fuck. I stood next to Megan and tried to think as quickly as I could. We were on a large patch of grass, nothing hard nearby for her to hurt herself on. I took a step back, dug my phone out of my pocket and dialed 9-1-1.

My adrenaline shot high, but the dispatcher walked me through a few basic steps—the first of which was to make sure she was breathing, and she was—while we waited on the ambulance. By the time it arrived, the seizure had subsided.

A fire truck had showed up, along with a police car, the standard 911 responses. The firemen left when they saw the EMS people had the situation under control. The police officer stayed and jotted a couple of notes.

I gave him what little information I had about her, which wasn’t much. The cop looked bored and annoyed by the routine call.

One of the EMS guys approached me. “Can’t let you ride along in the ambulance, but we’re leaving now if you want to follow us.”

I just looked at him.

“Your girlfriend’s going to be okay, though,” he said.

My eyes darted back to his. “She’s not my girlfriend.”

“Oh, just going by what she said. You following?”

I looked back at the ambulance. “No.”

*****

There were two things that always gave me peace and cleared my head. Photography was one, but I’d spent the whole day working with cameras at BLACKWOOD studios, so I chose the second: surfing.

The sun had started to set, and cast a golden light over the water. By that time of the day, the beach had cleared out, except for a few die-hards which included two other surfers. I rode the waves for about thirty minutes, and found myself uncomfortable and incapable of getting something off my mind. I wasn’t going to be able to let it go, so I had to do something about it.

I went home and grabbed a shower. I had to get there. I was on my way when Dawn called.

“Where are you?” she asked.

I took a deep breath, not sure I wanted to tell her. She might get the wrong idea. I’d have to tell her later. I didn’t answer directly, instead I just told her to go on inside. “Go through the sliding glass doors. Sorry, I didn’t leave a key. We’ll get you one. For now, you’ll have to climb over the fence, the doors are around back. I think they’re open.”

“You’re kidding, I hope. How do I scale a six-foot fence?”

“Sorry, but I’m not kidding.”

She sighed. “Well, what if someone thinks I’m breaking in and calls the police?”

“No one’s going to see you. All the miniature palms will block their view. And even if they do see you, no one’s going to call the police. Hell, even if they did, they’d check with me, and I’d tell them I told you to get in that way.”

“Right, because it’s not like you don’t have crazy girls showing up at your place.”

That stung. But she had no idea just how crazy it had been this evening. “Dawn, it’s fine. I’ll be home around nine. I need to take care of something.”

I drove for another ten minutes. Just as I was pulling up to my destination, Dawn texted.
Just completed my first breaking and entering.

I wrote back.
Congratulations. They get easier the more you do them. Especially when the victim tells you how to get in. See you soon
.

Dawn replied.
I’m ordering food. See you when you get here, VICTIM
.

I switched my phone to mute, got out of the car, and walked to the front door. The house was just as I remembered it, but there was a different car in the driveway.

I knocked. Heard footsteps. Heard the unlocking of the door. And it opened.

Her eyebrows raised and her mouth dropped open.

“Luke?” That’s all she said. Just my name.

“Sorry to show up like this, but—”

“Please, come in,” she said. “It’s good to see you.”

I entered the house and she opened her arms for a hug.

Years had passed since I’d last seen Dawn’s Aunt Jackie. She’d always been into health food and exercise and it paid off—she looked exactly the same as she did the last time I saw her.

“I know why you’re here,” she said. “Let’s sit outside.”

I followed her to the back porch. Her house was situated on the highest point in the neighborhood, complete with a view of most of the other houses’ rooftops, and hills in the background.

Aunt Jackie told me Dawn’s mother called her late that afternoon and had gave her a ration of shit for knowing that Dawn and I had been seeing each other, and for not telling her parents.

“Like it’s my job to inform them of everything,” Jackie said, shaking her head. Then, “Oh, I’m so rude. I was so preoccupied when I saw you that I forgot to offer you something to drink. I have tea, fresh lemonade—made it right from that tree over there.” She pointed.

“Lemonade would be great.”

“I’ll make two. Be right back.”

She was only gone for a couple of minutes. I rehearsed what I was going to say, and prepared myself for what I might hear.

I had no idea what was going on. Driving over, I thought about dozens of scenarios, but still didn’t think any of them fit. There was a piece of the puzzle missing, and without it, I couldn’t find the answer.

Aunt Jackie returned with our drinks, sat, and said, “I never tell a person’s secrets. They tell me, I lock it away. Dawn has always said telling me something is like putting it in a vault. I’ve always prided myself on being a person someone can trust. If you tell me, you don’t have to worry that it will get out.”

I watched her face turn from a pleasant, soft, smile to a harsh, tight-lipped frown. I took a sip of the homemade lemonade. The slight sweetness combined with the sour bite to it was strangely perfect for this situation.

“So I’m not proud of this,” she said. “Any of it. I hate the fact that my sister trusted me with something so big, knowing I’d never tell anyone. And now, she’s blaming me for not sharing about you and Dawn reconnecting. It’s a no win situation.  Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”

My stomach churned, waiting for more information. The suspense left a heavy ache in my chest. Still, I didn’t rush her. “Sometimes you can’t win.”

Aunt Jackie shook her head. “Yeah, quite true. Too many situations where winning isn’t an option.”

I nodded and waited for her to continue.

She sipped from her glass. “What I’m going to tell you is going to piss you off. Fair warning. And now that this is coming out, there’s a good chance it’s going to cause a major rift between Dawn and her parents, considering how she feels about you.”

“I’m ready.” I was on the verge of begging her to get on with it.

She reclined in the lawn chair and told me the secret she’d been holding on to for all these years.

When my dad went to work with Dawn’s dad, our parents became very close. They spent weekends together, celebrated holidays with each other, went on cruises and overseas trips, everything. It was almost as though they were family.

That’s how they came to agree that if anything happened to my parents, I’d go live with them, and if anything happened to Dawn’s parents, she’d come live with us.

Dawn’s parents had kept up their part of the deal when my parents died.

Apparently, there was more to it than that.

My father was a risk-taker with money, she told me. He’d hardly saved any, even when the company started to take off and my parents’ wealth quadrupled in size in the span of two years. My father invested in a lot of little start-ups, losing most of the money, which was typical for the industry.

What wasn’t typical was a married couple with a son to go without life insurance. Why? I don’t know, but it is what it is.

Dawn’s father and mine had come to an agreement. Her father would hold a certain amount of my dad’s stock, keeping it off-limits. Apparently, that’s the only way my father saw himself having something to live off if and when the business crashed.

I was too young to understand the details of money. I have no idea what drove him to be careless with his money. But that’s just how it was, and his intentions in the long run were good.

There was more to the story, and I just didn’t see it coming.

A few years after my parents were killed in the car accident, the business started to falter. Buyouts were proposed and rejected. Dawn’s father was intent on making it work, with him holding all of the power.

And in order to do that, he needed cash. Lots of it. Fast. Pumping money into the business was like doing CPR on someone who had been deceased far too long to be revived. The business failed.

The vast majority of the money he’d used was the money that had been set aside in stocks for my parents, and in the event that something happened to them, the money was supposed to go to me in two stages—some when I turned eighteen, to help with college, and the rest when I turned twenty-one.

I wasn’t sure what to say. I listened as she laid out more details of the story.

There were no legal documents. The arrangement existed between two couples who trusted each other like family.

The stupid decision my parents made was nothing in comparison to the betrayal Dawn’s dad had committed, an act that changed the course of my life without me having the slightest idea.

I’d never thought about my parents’ money before. All I was told was that they didn’t have life insurance and that was that. I was seventeen at the time this conversation came up.

And by that point, Dawn’s father had begun his desperate attempt at saving the business, stealing the money my parents had intended for me.

And here I was now, hearing it all for the first time.

My mind twisted, trying to accept what Dawn’s father had done. Though, honestly, I wasn’t angry in the least bit. I was more stunned than anything else. I briefly thought how that money might have changed my life, allowing me to live comfortably on my own, making it easier to go to college….

Then again, I might’ve blown it all on drugs.

There was no way of knowing. And as I came to that conclusion, I felt an odd sense of comfort with the fact that it didn’t matter that I hadn’t received a penny of that money. What mattered was the betrayal. I wouldn’t have understood it, or even believed it as a teenager. It wouldn’t make sense that somebody that had taken me in and was so good to me, would then steal from me. Now that I was older, it made sense, and I knew it to be true.