Authors: M. Dauphin H. Q. Frost
I heard my dad yell my name when he got home from work, but I didn't respond. He scooped me up and took me in the house, laying me on the couch before he called for my mom.
"Ryley, what in the world?" she said, her voice worried as she knelt beside me.
How could I tell my parents I was still carrying the child that I tried to kill and didn't succeed? The one that belonged to the boy who hated me and I couldn't find him to tell him he was still going to be a father?
"It didn't work, momma," I cried into the pillow. My entire life had fallen apart in the matter of weeks.
"Oh, honey. Oh no, Ryley." My mom started crying too. My dad got so mad he punched the wall and walked out.
Wonderful.
I had no more heart. Gone. Gone with four words: "It's taken care of". They were repeating in my head like a bad beat. Speaking of bad beat, on my drive back to campus, Light Years came on the radio and I almost drove the car off the bridge. It was an old song, why was it playing? I hated that song, I hated Ryley fucking Reynolds. It's funny how a song can take on such a different meaning after someone rips out your heart. Suddenly that song was accurate. Me and Ryley were light years apart and I could change if she could too. She changed to a murderous bitch and I'd just be the asshole she made me into.
I don't know how long it went on for, eleven, twelve months, but the first few months she called me three or more times a week. It dwindled to once a week and I can remember on three occasions answering. The first time was purely accidental and I hung up. The second was me hoping she'd get the fucking point. I answered, waiting a second then hung up. The third was because I fucking missed her. Through everything, I still missed her as much as I ever had. It didn't help I'd been drunk that night and I had an unknown female naked in bed next to me.
I answered, but didn't speak.
"Hello?" There was commotion in the background of her phone that I tried to drown out so I could hear her sweet voice. "Liam?"
I almost answered her, hearing her voice never sounded so good, but she also sounded tired and I was glad for it. I hoped she suffered daily for killing our happiness. I did.
I didn't stay in Tennessee; I had to get as far away from that tainted state as I could. After I made sure Gram had her sister to look after her, I left the state. I hauled my ass to Wisconsin and started college courses while working nights at a used car lot just off campus. I was only detailing cars and wasn't making much, but student loans helped get me through. I didn't score a break until I was graduating four years later. A buddy of mine who majored in business was determined to do something big. I majored in construction management, and when his dad gave him the initial startup costs for his first business, he asked me if I'd partner with him. We'd only been alive for a year, but we'd made enough to where I paid back my part of the loan from his dad and almost paid off student loans, and he paid back his. We were sitting pretty.
I hadn't seen Gram in three years and when I did see her three years prior, I flew her to me in Wisconsin with money from student loans. I missed her all the time; I tried to call often, but getting stuck on the phone with her didn't mesh with my schedule, so when I got the call that she passed in her sleep, I cursed myself for not calling more. For not making more effort to see her. For not manning up and going home for winter breaks. Seeing Ryley was the scariest thing I could think of. Seeing the one person that had the ability to make me feel so high and so low at the same time, it was a complete mind fuck and I couldn't face those fears.
When I hung up the phone with my great aunt, I slammed my hands down on the desk with a grunt.
"What's up, man?" Jack asked.
I rubbed my face feverishly and let out another grunt. "Fuck, man." I exhaled before standing and clearing my throat, grabbing my coat. "Still snowing out there?"
"Yeah. What's goin' on?" Jack was the most down to earth guy I'd ever met. He'd give you the shirt off his back and I knew going into business with him would be the best decision of my life.
"I need a few days off." I looked away from him.
The tears weren't there; it just wasn't registering like it should have yet. It'd been years since I'd seen her and three weeks since I'd spoken to her last. The realization that she was gone just wasn't setting in.
"My grandma died." I skimmed my hand over my buzzed head that I'd kept this short ever since leaving Tennessee. Ryley loved my hair longer and the second I walked away from that mess, I started changing my body as much as I could. I'd put on weight that I turned to muscle, I covered sixty percent of my body in tattoos, and I kept my hair short; my hair was her favorite. I pierced my lip and nose. I did that back in college and figured I'd take them out soon after doing it, but I grew partial to my new look. I'd picked up hobbies I'd never thought about either, like drums. I loved to play drums suddenly. It was a release to be able to beat the shit out of something, but make music at the same time. I wasn't in a band and didn't want to be. I'd fucked around with a few local bands, filling in when they needed someone, but I didn't have the drive to devote myself to a band family. I didn't have the drive to devote myself to anyone.
"Oh shit, man. Yeah, cool, cool. That's cool. Uh." He cleared his throat and stepped toward me, putting his hand on my shoulder. "You cool? I know she's who raised you." He stared earnestly into my face and I nodded.
"I'm cool," I lied.
There was a fucking war brewing in my chest and in my head. I was going to have to see my Gram dead in her coffin, and I was going to have to see the one girl I tried to kill in my heart six years prior.
"Take as long as you need. I got this 'til you get back, and what I can't handle, Steve's here."
"I won't be long," I promised, grabbing my truck keys.
"Liam," he said sternly before I walked out and as I turned, I knew what to expect. "I know you got some demons in Tennessee, but don't disrespect your grandma, man. And don't you dare do it under the pretense you have to get back here. You're salary." He smirked; I chuckled with a shake of my head.
He knew me too well. I would have used the excuse I had to get back to work, but between him and Steve, they could handle my part for a few days, and he was right, I wasn't losing out on money by not being there.
Pulling into my driveway, I grunted. "Shit." Dana was at my place. It seemed like the girl couldn't pick up a freaking hint.
We weren't together, but she tried almost every damn day. I kept her around for the steady ass because I'd had a similar scare to the one I'd had six years prior. I was in my sophomore year in college and was sleeping with a few women. The same week that one told me she got an STD from another guy, another girl told me she was pregnant. Luckily I didn't catch that STD, and luckily it turned out the kid wasn't mine. I was never stupid again, like the night I was with Ryley. Before Ryley, I'd never not used a condom, so why I didn't that night, I couldn't tell you. I guess when you love and trust someone to full capacity and you're in that moment, you just don't think right. That was my case at least. Ryley was the one and only girl I didn't use protection with and I vowed to never make the same mistake twice, and I didn't. But condoms weren't one hundred percent, so I was scared shitless when that girl in college tried to tell me I might be a father. I didn't even know her and thought maybe she planned it. Poked holes in the rubber or something.
I'd known Dana long enough I could trust her. She wanted a commitment from me, but I knew she wouldn't do something as stupid as to get pregnant to tie me down. I'd just take the kid and ditch her ass if that happened. Sometimes her being around worked out, like the nights I considered drinking myself to death, she was there to either make sure I didn't die, or to cut me off before I went off the deep end. Then, most of the time, her being around was a huge pain in my ass. She wanted to pretend we were the happy couple, even though she'd tell people right to their face we weren't together, but she still wanted the affection. She wanted all the shit that didn't appeal to me anymore, not after Ryley. Ryley made sure I'd hate who I used to be, and she succeeded.
"Hey." Sometimes Dana's smile pissed me off.
"I gotta head to Tennessee. Want to come?" That would be one of the times that having her around would work out to my advantage. She could distract me from everyone in that godforsaken state that I didn't want to see. The only person I wanted to talk to there was Gram, and, well....
Dana was more than happy to go with me and I knew what her simple brain was thinking, this was bringing us closer. I decided that once I got back, she was gone. I'd find another steady piece of ass. I could have flown, but Gram's funeral wasn't for four days, what the hell was I rushing there for? I knew I'd have to take care of the house, clean everything out, throw it away, then get it on the market, and that was what I was dreading the most.
An eleven-hour drive with a woman that has the bladder the size of a child's is some of the worst shit I'd ever had to endure. If she wasn't talking, we were stopped so she could pee. I was considering flying her back home while I drove. The only time her tiny bladder came in handy was as we got closer and dread started to fill me. I tried telling myself it was dread because my family was gone, with the exception of Megan, but we hardly spoke, and I sure as hell didn't speak to my mother. The dread wasn't because of Gram, yeah I was heartbroken about her passing, but the dread clutching my lungs and squeezing was from having to face Ryley.
Ryley fucking Reynolds. My best friend. My one true love. The mother of my child. The murderer of my child and of my heart. I loved to hate her and hated I loved her.
No one in town wanted anything to do with me. The town whore who made both of the Porter boys disappear. Rumors spread the entire time I was pregnant, but the only people that knew weren't telling a soul. Jenny and I had become even closer and she knew what it meant to me to keep it a secret. My parents and I weren't on the best of terms, but they were never huge gossipers. I was able to keep all of it at bay, not answering anyone when they asked about the daddy. That is, until he was born. It didn't take long for word to get out that Able was his. If it wasn't obvious who he belonged to while I was carrying him, it sure as hell was after birth. I was stunned that I was even related to this child that I grew for nearly ten months. I never really looked at Liam's mom, they didn't know their dad, and Gram was too far removed to really have any huge resemblance to them, so I was never sure how strong their characteristics ran. I definitely knew now. The moment he was born I broke down, like most mothers do when they give birth to their baby. Mine wasn't because I was happy, though, mine was because he looked so much like Liam I wasn't sure if I'd be able to look at him without resenting him.
Pregnancy without Liam there was hard enough, but I survived. I moved out of my parents' house and in with Jenny in her apartment. We both worked at the bar on Main Street so we made pretty good money in tips and were able to afford something that would be safe enough for when the baby arrived. I was getting used to the fact that Liam may never come back for me, at least until I looked into that tiny baby's light green eyes. Eyes that he shared with his father. That's when I knew it would never be okay.
The day after he was born, the doctor came in to talk to me. I didn't want to breastfeed, I didn't want to hold him. Jenny stayed at the hospital with me because someone needed to be there to take care of us. I just couldn't do it. I was so scared I was going to hate my baby because he would be a daily reminder of what I lost. My doctor told me I had postpartum depression and that with some medicine I would feel better about my new role as a mother. That was a joke, but I listened because what choice did I have? I was stuck in the hospital bed. They wouldn't let me leave until I named him, and I didn't want to name him. I didn't want him to be mine.
It'd been two days and I refused to hold him, but the day that we could go home the nurse forced me to hold him, claiming she couldn't allow me to take the baby if I didn't know how to hold him. She just wanted me to get to know him since I refused to spend any time with him. I knew the minute I looked at him what his name would be. It was perfect.
Raising a baby wasn't easy work. There is shit, and a lot of it. It's everywhere. There are bottles that never seem to end, dishes suck, the laundry doesn't stop, and you can forget about sleep. Add in the cost of diapers, daycare, and formula, and things just go downhill really fast. Even after Able was turning 5 I still got flustered with everything that could happen in one day while raising a child.
Carl, my boyfriend, was getting better and better at helping out with Able. He would watch him if I needed to run to the store to make it easier on me. He would play with Able like he was his own son. But it seemed Carl wasn't around for me much anymore, he only wanted to spend time with Able. I hated watching the two of them together, though. It was a constant reminder that the one person I wanted in Able's life most wanted nothing to do with us.
When I first met Carl, he was the nicest anyone had been to me since everything happened, so I immediately took to him, clinging to the one person in town that wanted to spend time with me, other than my roommate. Sexually, he tried to please me, it never worked really, but I thought it was nice that he tried. Honestly, every time the mention of sex came up, I cringed. Nothing was the same after Liam. Nothing.
There had been more times than I care to admit that I looked at my child and saw Liam. He would be playing outside with Jenny and I would watch him, thinking back to when I first met Liam and how gentle he was with me, how sweet he was to me. I cried every day for the first year of Able's little life; I knew I was a terrible mother, but I couldn't change it. I tried. The drugs the doctor gave me didn't help, but I wasn't surprised. I wasn't hormonal, I was just flat out sad. I called Liam so much back then I'm surprised he didn't change his number. One time he answered, I couldn't hear his voice because Able was throwing a shit fit because he was hungry, but he answered and the line stayed connected for longer than it ever had before. When the line finally went dead I knew that was it. I couldn't try contacting him anymore. He obviously didn't want anything to do with me, or the screaming baby in the background.