“I have wanted to tell you, but I just never felt it was the right time. I was going to tell you when I made the choice to keep him, but I decided to wait. I wanted you to get through school. Then you had been signed to play with the Red Jackets. Then after that you got married. I didn’t want to cause you any problems. Then your divorce happened and the tabloids reported your troubles. I didn’t want to add to it.” I try to calm him and reassure him, but it is of no use, there is no reasoning with him when he gets like this.
“We could have had a great life together, Aria. And damn, if I don’t still just want to take you in my arms and never let you go again. But I don’t know if I can ever forgive this. I want to kiss your lying mouth even though you don’t deserve it. I loved you and you tore out my heart and stomped on it. And now…I find out you pulled this shit!” Tears run down his face, and I ache to make it right, but I don’t know how.
Brian takes me by surprise, grabbing me by the back of my head, and forcefully shoving his tongue down my throat. He smells like a seedy bar. I used to ache for this moment, but not like this. I push him back, but he doesn’t stop smothering me with his unwanted affection.
I bite down on his tongue and he finally lets me go.
“Stop, Brian! Not like this. I don't want you like this. You're angry and you are piss drunk. You can barely walk straight.”
“Tell me you still want me, Aria!” he screams in my face.
“Not like this Brian, I don't want you like this... I am in love with someone else.” If only I could tell Tyler that I love him. “We’ll talk tomorrow when you’re sober.” A tear falls down my cheek. I hate that he looks so lost, so undone.
“You weren't in love with someone else when you climbed in bed with me the other night.” he sneers in my direction.
“Please take a cab back to your hotel, and I will make arrangements for you to meet our son and spend some time with him.”
He takes a deep breath and let’s go of his clenched fist. Without another word, he writes down the name of his hotel on the back of my cable bill that is lying on the kitchen counter.
He starts towards the door; he places his hand on the knob. “Brian, I’m so sorry I lied to you. I hope one day you can understand.”
“Sorry you lied! Well doesn’t that just make you a dirty liar then? Look at you telling me your dirty truth.” he laughs.
He quietly shuts the door. The shock finally hits me that Brian is here. He knows about Jace, and that I have kept him from being a father. What in the hell kind of mess have I made for us? He is never going to forgive me. I can’t blame him. I deserve everything he throws at me. I did this to him—to us, our son. What have I done?
I wish
Faye were still with me, I miss her so damned much. There are moments I forget she is really gone. I can’t bring myself to sit in her chair, but I can’t bring myself to part with it either. Sometimes, I think she is going to be sitting there waiting to lecture me on living again.
I clutch my heart and sink to the floor by the door. Tyler and Brian hate me. Brian is going to take Jace from me and turn him against me. I can’t lose him too. Jace is all I have. I hear tires squealing in the distance and pray harder than I ever have. I pray that Brian isn’t behind the wheel.
Chapter Fourteen
Two days have passed, and I haven’t been able to reach Brian since his outburst. It’s being reported on the news that he’s missing. I can’t turn on the TV, or the radio without hearing about it. God, I hope he is okay. I don’t think I could take it if something happened to him after the terms we parted on. Why did I let him walk away so angry? I keep replaying his last words to me over and over again, “doesn’t that just make you a dirty liar.” The word liar seems to echo through my mind on repeat.
I am sitting on the floor playing cars with Jace while listening to the radio; he loves music.
The broadcaster cuts in with a special report:
This is Chip Morgan interrupting your program with a special report. We are receiving numerous unconfirmed reports that baseball superstar Brian Case has been found dead. It appears at this time that he has died from injuries sustained in automobile crash.
They say they are moments in a person’s life when time actually stops. It stands completely still and you can’t hear or feel anything. This is that moment. I blink, turning off the radio and switching to CNN News on the TV. I see Brian’s picture plastered across the screen. They cut to a live scene showing a wrecker pulling a mangled heap of metal from an embankment. I recognize the car, because it is the same one he rented while he was here for my mother’s funeral.
“Sources will neither confirm nor deny that this car, you see here being pulled from this embankment belongs to baseball star Brian Case.” Brian Case, his name echoes through my head a thousand times. Please God, no! I run to the bathroom and empty my stomach.
Pain hits me with such force, I don’t think I can survive this I put a pillow over my face to muffle my screams. I don’t want to scare Jace.
Oh, God help me.
I killed him.
I killed the father of my child.
Caroline is knocking on my door; I hear her calling my name, but I can’t answer her. She eventually lets herself in with the spare key.
“Aria, its Caroline, are you home?”
I weakly make my way back to the living room and find her hunched down in the floor talking to Jace about his cars.