When You Were Mine (Stone Lake 2)

I start combing through the evidence Luna gave me and processing it.

Letter after letter addressed to me in care of Agent Dern at the FBI office. Each one marked return to sender and refused. My fingers move over the postmark dates. Luna began about three months after I left Stone Lake. Three months and the address was right, the letters should have made it to me.

But I never saw a one of them.

There’s not just a few either. There are probably fifteen letters here, each unopened and stamped refused.

My hands shake as I gather the letters. I want to read them, but I can’t seem to make myself, not right now. Instead I put those in the chair beside me, pinning them between the armrest and my leg. Then I go through the other papers. There are not many, just four sheets. Those four sheets are what destroy me. They rip me completely apart.

One is a birth certificate form, and just a small stilted note paper-clipped to it. The papers are folded and worn, showing the years they’ve been folded and preserved.

Why did Luna keep them?

To remind her that I wasn’t worth her time.

I instinctively know that’s what it was. How could she not think that when it’s clear I never signed the birth certificate.

At first, I think she must have mailed the birth certificate, like the other letters. But, there’s no envelope, nothing.

“Did you mail the birth certificate?” I ask her, and I can’t even recognize my own voice. I’m holding the paper in my hand and it’s shaking because my hand is trembling so bad. I can’t help it or disguise it…

I don’t even try.

“At first. When it came back, I asked Atticus—”

“Jesus. You trusted this with him? You knew he hated me, you knew he would have never taken this to me, Luna. If he had, I would have been back in Stone Lake. I wouldn’t have left you alone with my son.”

“But you did,” she says.

“I didn’t know!” I yell, so many emotions swirling inside of me that I can’t contain them. I stand up, step into her and look down at her, treating her like I do a suspect—trying to make her admit that she’s lying. She surprises me and doesn’t back down, yelling at me in return.

“You did!”

“I didn’t! If you gave these to Atticus, he sure as fuck never gave them to me, Luna. Hell, you were always so fucking blind when it came to him. You never truly grasped how evil the bastard was.”

“If I was blind, Gavin, that’s your fault.”

“I—”

“You knew he was the one that spread those rumors about us around school. You didn’t tell me. You knew he was using our friendship, and how much he lied, and you never warned me not once.”

“Luna—”

“And I knew none of this. I would have brought you the papers, but I was in the hospital because it was a difficult delivery. I had been on bedrest for months, and I had no one except for my parents and Atticus, so I had to rely on them.”

“I would have signed the birth certificate. I would have been there if I’d known.”

“All those letters. Are you saying you’re not the one to refuse them?”

“I sure as fuck wasn’t,” I snarl, feeling helpless. Too much time has gone past. There’s no way to fix this. There’s no way to go back and make it so that I haven’t lost almost thirteen years with my child. There’s no way to keep him from hating me.

There’s no way to make this right.

“You say that, but just like everything else, we both know it’s lies, Gavin.”

“It’s not, Luna. Whatever else you must think of me…you have to know that I would never turn my back on you or my son.” I can hear the desperation in my voice. The emptiness in her eyes freezes something inside of me. I need to erase that look from her face. It’s wrong. Luna should never have that look… that loneliness.

“How do I know that? You turned your back on me, Gavin. You walked away and didn’t look back. The numbers I had for you stopped working, you didn’t respond to my letters. You cut me and our son out of your life.”

“I’m telling you that I didn’t do that. I wouldn’t do that, Luna. Ever.”

She just stands there looking at me. Her hazel eyes holding none of their warmth, none of the joy that I’m used to seeing. She doesn’t speak for long moments. She just continuously stares. I don’t flinch; I don’t look away. I will her to believe me, to know that I would never be the man she thinks I am. This is all Atticus’s fault. I don’t know how he managed all this, but it stinks of him. If he wasn’t already dead, I’d kill him again.