Sweet Little Memories
Page 3

“Is he yours?” I asked. Waiting wasn’t possible. As much as I hurt for Stone at this moment, I needed him to explain. To assure me he wasn’t a heartless man who allowed his son to be raised by a man who had abused him when he was a child.
“His mother was our maid. I was fifteen when my father hired her. She was young—always dressed in short skirts and tight tops. She seduced me and taught me all about sex. What happened between us wasn’t love. It was simply lust. She successfully lured and married my father at the same time we were having sex. I made her stop coming to me when they were married. One month after their wedding, the morning sickness started.”
He stopped speaking. He was lost in thought, his focus intense. A crease had taken up residence on his forehead—a direct result of the angry scowl on his face.
I didn’t say anything. Not able to move from where I stood, I simply waited.
“My father beat me from the time I was five years old until I towered over him at sixteen. I don’t mean with a belt. When I was small, he threw me on the ground by my hair and kicked me. Held me up against the wall with his hand on my throat while I turned blue. Called me names no father should ever call a son. Broke my bones a few times, but I survived. As I grew, he threw fists at me. It didn’t get less violent. I had grown, so he used more force. I was harder to hurt.” He stopped and inhaled deeply before lifting his head. His expression was void of any emotion. It was an empty hole and that broke me.
“When my stepmother told me she was pregnant, I thought my life was over. In my father’s world, everything belongs to him. He always gets what he wants. If anyone tries to take something from him, his brutality has no bounds. When he found out his son had slept with his new wife before he had, my status as the son he had to abuse disappeared. In an instant, I’d become a threat. Some fucked up form of competition.”
My stomach was in knots. I felt ill. I knew his father had hurt him, but I never knew the extent of the abuse. How was Stone a functioning, successful adult after that childhood? Or was he? I didn’t know him that well. He’d hidden his son from me. He could be hiding more. Did he have more darkness inside that he covered up? I hated myself for thinking he was deceitful. But the fear was there. How could it not be?
“You still work for him. He’s raising your son.” I paused after saying that aloud. Facing it and accepting it were two different things.
Stone dipped his chin as if he needed a moment to regroup. When raised his head up he looked like a man who was silently pleading and preparing for battle at the same time. “Do you think Wills is my son?”
It was a question I had thought I knew the answer to until he asked me. I held the proof in my hand. Wasn’t Wills’ paternity already established? He hadn’t denied anything. He had explained his relationship with his stepmother. I wasn’t sure why he was asking me this now. I thought he’d explain why, try to help me understand.
I held the photos up. “Yes.”
I wanted Stone to say something, but he didn’t. With that one word, his entire face shuttered closed. That bored unavailable look I hated so much had returned.
He straightened and walked past me down the hallway. He didn’t stop or say a word. All I heard was his bedroom door as it closed behind him.
 
 
Beulah
I WAITED, UNSURE IF I was capable of staying.
After ten minutes had passed and he hadn’t left his room, I decided I couldn’t stay with Stone. I knew he was hurting—Jasper had cut him deeply. But he’d left me alone when we needed to talk.
My room seemed so far away now. Everything I owned was still in there although I had been sleeping in his room. I couldn’t even walk to my room. I needed to leave so I could curl up in private. I had to find a way to control the complete anguish that had overcome me. Doing that here, so close to Stone, made me feel vulnerable.
I had nowhere to go, but I had a car.
My purse was still sitting on the table by the entrance. My heart was heavy as I stood weighing my options. I was fully aware if I left it could mean the end with Stone. I may never walk back inside this apartment again. The man down the hall still held my heart, even after learning his secret. It didn’t matter to me if Stone had more dark secrets to unveil. I closed my eyes tightly as they burned with tears. The realization that Stone could be hiding a twisted ugly side to himself still didn’t diminish my love for him. Which made me equally twisted.
Walking to the door, I picked up my purse, and left. The weight of the door closing behind me held so much significance. Despair weighed on me making it hard to leave. Each step away from him, from the happiness I’d found there, tore at my heart. What I wanted and what was right were two different things.
I stopped at the top step and looked back. Memories, so many sweet little memories were inside there. How did I leave them behind? I had to walk away and forget that my heart stayed with him. As I began to descend the stairs finally, I found a way to breathe through the sorrow. It would be a constant thing. Something that wouldn’t leave me easily. If ever.
When I reached the second floor, the door was open and Fiona stood there. Her hip rested against the doorframe, her arms were crossed over her chest. She was wearing one of her running outfits. But she didn’t seem to be leaving for a run. Her eyes were on me. Watching me. Sympathy was there as if she knew.
“Where are you going?” she asked me.
“I’m not sure.” My car was the only place I had figured out so far.
She dropped her arms and stepped back to clear the path into her apartment. “Come inside.”
Fiona’s apartment was too close to Stone. I glanced up and thought for a moment that if I got far enough away my heart may hurt less. I knew that wasn’t true. Nothing was going to ease this pain, but staying close to him may be easier.
It was hard to accept that he had chosen to be alone tonight when I knew he needed me.
“He may want me to leave the building.” As much as that hurt to say to Fiona, I knew Stone could be very cutoff. Also, he had walked away from me. The last time I looked at his face, it was so empty. As if I had become dead to him. The memories gone. Nothing remaining.
Fiona sighed. “Who do you think called me and told me to catch you before you could leave? I wasn’t standing here by accident as you were making your escape.”
The small sliver of hope that coursed through me wasn’t enough to ease my grief completely. But there was something. “Stone called you?” I needed confirmation.