Like a Memory

  Lila Kate turned her head and I felt her gaze on me. “Why? Because a sick woman acted out of her own darkness? Her own battles? Where were her parents? Why didn’t they know she was hurting? She wasn’t yours to protect. Y’all had ended things. Letting Octavia’s actions determine your choices isn’t fair. Not to you or the girl you love.”

  I didn’t have a response to that. I just knew it wasn’t that simple. “Not now. . I can’t.” I replied turning to finally look at her.

  She frowned then leaned back in her seat. We drank our coffee and sat in silence for the next hour.

  When footsteps sounded on the steps I turned my attention toward them. Cruz appeared from the beach. He’d been running. He was sweating and in his running shorts. He’d come to the memorial but he had been unsure what to say to me. Most had been.

  “Hey. Y’all got room for one more?” he asked.

  Lila Kate immediately stood up. “I was leaving,” then she turned and did just that. Like she always did. When Cruz Kerrington was around she exited. There was no secret that she disliked him. Her actions had made that clear years ago.

  “Always could make that girl clear a room. Can’t figure out why she hates me so damn much.”

  I would argue that he was being stupid. That he did know. But in all honesty, I don’t think he does. He is too self-absorbed to have noticed.

  “You gave a fourteen-year-old Lila Kate her first real kiss then moved on to another girl a week later. While little Lila Kate was in love you were making a legacy as a womanizer for yourself.”

  Cruz sat down. “Really? She hates me because I kissed her? That was what like eight years ago? That can’t be it.”

  I didn’t have the energy to explain it or point it all out. Instead I shrugged. He could believe what he wanted.

  “What about you? You making it?”

  I was living. “Sure.” What else did I say to that?”

  “I’m sorry, man. I should have come by before now but I didn’t know what to say. Still don’t.”

  There was nothing he could say. “How’s working for your dad?” I asked him.

  He let out a groan of frustration. “Hard. I miss college.”

  The Kerrington Country Club would be his one day. He knew it but he also didn’t want it. He just didn’t have the balls to tell his dad that. He had two younger brothers. Blaze and Zander. He should let one of them have it.

  “Do either of your brothers have interest in it?”

  He shook his head. “Blaze is off in L.A. still. Trying to be the next Zac Efron. And Zander is planning on the Marines.”

  I’d seen Blaze on the television nighttime drama he was making a name for himself on. But only once and I hadn’t watched the whole show. Phoenix had been watching it and wanted me to see Blaze.

  We talked about nothing important and for a few short moments I didn’t think about my reality.

  Bliss York

  I SHOULD HAVE kept driving. But I didn’t. The sign was already taken down and the windows were dark. Nothing there now. It was empty. I sat in my car and thought about the first day I had walked in there and applied for a job. It was just a couple months ago. Yet my world had completely altered since then.

  Octavia’s sign was gone. There was a “For Lease” poster on the door. The same door I had walked out of and dropped boxes then came face to face with Nate. Who I never expected to see again.

  Would this all be different if I hadn’t applied for a job here that day? If I’d gone somewhere else and never locked eyes with Nate? Would he have stayed with her, married her, had his son? Tears stung my eyes as I thought of the life he could have had.

  It had been three weeks now since he’d left. Not a second went by that I didn’t think of him. That I didn’t worry about him. That my heart didn’t ache for all he was going through. But I couldn’t call. I couldn’t ask him if he was okay or how he was doing. I could do nothing.

  Today I would start my new job. I was going to be the new director for youth services and marketing at the Sea Breeze Library. Saffron and Holland’s mother was a famous author so she had pulled a few strings for me. I didn’t know it however until I had gotten the job. My boss had mentioned Blythe Corbin doing a signing because of me getting the position. I’d asked mom if she knew anything about it and she said no. I wasn’t sure how Blythe had known I applied.

  As much as I enjoyed Live Bay working there wasn’t what I wanted to do. I preferred to go there as a customer. Serving my friends was taxing at times. I didn’t know how Larissa put up with it.

  I started to back out and head to work when Eli’s truck pulled up beside me. He had driven by and saw my car and probably thought I was having a break down. I didn’t want to get out of my car. It was silly but standing there in front of the store seemed wrong now.

  Eli got out of his truck and walked over to get in my passenger side. He didn’t say anything at first. Just looked at the store and all its emptiness. There had been so much to happen here in such a short time. Octavia would have been pregnant with his son when I got this job. Had she known? And if she had why not tell Nate?

  “Looks sad. Lonely,” Eli remarked.

  “It does.”

  “You been here long?”

  “No. Just needed to see it.”

  He sighed. “You seem better.”

  “I am better. My heart will always hurt for Nate. For his pain. But my life will also go on. I can’t just quit. Life is a gift.”

  “You know that better than anyone.”

  I hadn’t meant that others didn’t know it. But yes, after facing death you look at life differently. It changes you.

  “Do you think he will ever come back here? That I’ll ever see him again?”

  “Don’t know. Maybe. I hope. For your sake.”

  He meant that.

  “I miss him. I just don’t know if seeing him again would be too much. It may be best that the night on the beach was it. My last memory of him. Eventually I’ll move on but I don’t think my heart ever truly will.”

  “Bliss, he’ll come back one day. I may not have lost a child. And I may not feel like someone ended their life because of me. But I am a man. I know how we think. And I know if I was in love with someone like you I’d come back. I’d have to. That being said, you can’t put your life on hold. When you’re ready. Date again. Enjoy life.”

  I wasn’t sure he was right. Part of me hoped he was the other part prayed he wasn’t. I just didn’t want to live waiting on a man to return that never did. For now, it didn’t matter. I wasn’t moving on anytime soon. I had friends and a job. And I had my memories.

  “Want me to bring you lunch today?”

  No. I didn’t want to eat. “Yes. That would be nice.” It was time I pushed through my sadness. Tried to find joy again.

  “I’ll be there with greasy burgers around noon.”

  “No. Not those. Anything else.” I’d had greasy burgers my first day at Octavia’s. The day Nate arrived. I couldn’t eat those now.

  “Okay. Then I’ll choose,” he said not having to ask why.

  He got back out of the car and went and got in his truck. But he didn’t leave until I cranked my car. Once I pulled out he followed behind me. Eli had been patient and understanding through all this. Being at home with him was quiet and easier than it would have been to go to my parents. They’d hover. I didn’t want that. I had needed to drink too much wine, eat icing out of a jar, and vomit a couple of times.

  He had held my hair for me and wiped my face and made sure my drunk ass got in bed. He was the best kind of friend there was. The one that you’ve had forever and knows what you need.

  I needed to stop by Live Bay and pick up my last paycheck but I’d do that tonight after work. Eli hadn’t mentioned rent and I’d forgotten. This morning it hit me and I needed to get it to him. It wasn’t like me to forget something like that but these past few weeks I had been very unBlisslike.

  I picked up my phone after I pulled into t
he library parking lot and texted Eli.

  “I have the rent money. I’ll get it to you. Sorry I forgot.”

  I waited a moment for a response.

  “Good. I would hate to have to kick you out on the street.”

  I laughed. I hadn’t laughed in weeks. Three to be exact.

  Smiling at my phone I was thankful I could laugh again. I hoped that Nate could too. I hope he found things to smile about. Things that brightened his day. And that eventually our time together wasn’t a bad memory. I wanted to think he could think of me again and smile. Not today. But eventually.

  Stepping out of the car I grabbed my purse and laptop and headed inside to the start of something new. Again.

  Nate Finlay

  THERE WAS A champagne colored Bentley parked outside my parent’s house. I hadn’t been by to visit them in a few days. Once I moved back to my house, I’d put distance between me and everyone. It was worrying my mother according to Ophelia and my dad who had called to inform me. Before my dad showed up at my house to kick my ass for not going to see mom I decided to go visit her.

  Mom had company and I wasn’t in the mood for visiting anyone else. But I was here now and needed to get it over with. Facing other people was eventually going to happen. Unless I bought a deserted island and moved there.

  I didn’t knock. I never did. This had been my home for 19 years. I walked inside and followed the voices. They were in the living room. As I stepped inside my ears heard the voice of the guest and although I had only been around he woman few times I knew who it was.

  My eyes went from Octavia’s stepmother to my mother. Why was she here?

  “Nate, I’m glad you’re here. “Saylor is actually here to see you,” my mom said. As if I would want to see anyone related to Octavia.

  “Why?” was my only response.

  “Because she has some information she felt you should hear. I agree with her.”

  My mother wasn’t one to listen to something she didn’t believe. Because of that I remained in the room. What I wanted to do was head for the door and not look back.

  “Sit down, Nate,” mom said. Not “do you want to have a seat?” she was telling me I was staying and listening. Which meant I was staying and listening.

  I did as I was ordered but I took the seat closest to the escape route. If she began talking about things I didn’t want to discuss I was gone. They both needed to be prepared for that.

  “Saylor called me yesterday and asked if she could come speak with you. I told her she could come talk to me first. After listening to her I was ready to call you. I see that your father beat me to it.” She turned to Saylor. “Go ahead.”

  Saylor was once a lingerie model. She’d met Octavia’s dad during a photo shoot she was in for his department store. They’d fallen in lust. He began fucking her and his wife found out. That marriage ended. This one then came a month after. She was still young and beautiful just past the lingerie modeling age. Octavia and Saylor had gotten along. Octavia just didn’t really care who her father was with as long as he gave her money.

  “I know what you’ve been told. What you’ve been blamed for. At first I thought the same thing. But then a few things happened that made me question what the letter from Octavia said. Sure she had issues. We all knew that. She was spoiled beyond repair. However, when a psychiatrist came to the funeral and told us how sorry he was for our loss and that he’d tried to help Octavia the past couple of years the best he could her father demanded his records or he’d have him accused of something and his license to practice taken away. So he got the records.

  Octavia was molested as a child by a close friend of her father’s. It went on for years until Octavia was old enough to get away from him. Two years ago, she paid a hit man to kill him. The disappearance of Vincent Brooklyn is now solved. He’s been dead for two years and his body is at the bottom of the Mississippi River.”

  She paused and I tried to wrap my head around this. I had been to the man’s house before with her father. When he went missing Octavia been truly upset or acted like it. She had called him Uncle Vincent.

  “The guilt of his murder was making her depression more severe. She was withdrawing and working on the store as a way to distract herself. She knew she was pregnant for three months. She was considering abortion and saying she didn’t want to be a mother. Months before you broke things off. What she wanted to talk to you about was she needed to confess her crime. She thought that telling you everything would ease her guilt. She never planned to tell you she was pregnant. She wasn’t going to keep the baby. Her abortion date had been scheduled. You are not the reason she hung herself or killed your child. She was never even going to tell you she was pregnant.”

  All I could do was sit there. It was once again like I was hearing a horror story that wasn’t real. This time I didn’t have guilt on my shoulders. But the horror was all the same. Octavia had lived a much darker life inside her head than I imagined.

  She’d suffered and mentally she wasn’t stable. She never had been. I had missed that. Thinking her indifference and distance was a good thing. She’d been that way to protect her secrets.

  It didn’t change the fact I had lost my son. I would have lost him anyway and never even known it. She was never going to let me have him. She didn’t want a child. She’d said that often.

  Standing up I walked out. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t ask questions. I just needed to leave. Be alone. My mother didn’t come running after me. She understood.

  I climbed back into my truck and drove. I ignored my phone. I’d call them back. I just drove. I drove until the town changed. Until the scenery became something else familiar. Until I was parked outside my grandpop’s bar.

  Sitting there I let the facts measure up in my head. I was able to let go of the self-blame. Move on from the guilt. I mourned the lives lost that didn’t have to be. For the sickness that causes people to act in a way that ruins lives and often ends them. I mourned the woman she could have been if she hadn’t been abused. I mourned the life my son could have had.

  But I no longer blamed me. I was free of that guilt. My choices didn’t make Octavia take her life and the life of my unborn son. Her choices and emotional damage had. I’d missed that. Yes. I hadn’t realized she was hiding pain but then we’d never been connected. I’d called that easy. When, in reality, it was wrong.

  I wanted what my parents had. I wanted that connection. I wanted a life with a woman I loved. That I could share with. The other way no longer felt easy. It was lonely. It was empty.

  I wanted Bliss.

  Opening my truck door, I got out and headed inside. My Grandpop had been worried about me. Called several times. Mom had told him I needed space not to come. Now I needed to plan. Decide how I would approach Bliss. She hadn’t heard from me in two months. I didn’t know what she was doing or if she was dating. The way we felt . . . the way it had been I didn’t want to think she could move on so quickly. But I owed her more. And I wanted to give it all to her. I was ready to deserve her. Whatever I had to do I was willing to do it.

  Bliss York

  TODAY HAD BEEN a success. The turn out for the first Teen Day at the library had been bigger than I hoped. One hundred and eleven teens came to meet the author and play the trivia games we had set up for them. I was happily humming to myself as I finished cleaning up the area we had held the event when the Media director, Matthew Goodwin, came walking into the room. He was six foot tall with dark brown hair and pretty green eyes. He had a definite nerdy vibe with his glasses and technical side but he was attractive. He pulled it off.

  I could tell he was interested in me by his daily flirting. It was subtle. Almost shy like. If there hadn’t been a Nate in my life. If I hadn’t fallen in love with him all over again just months ago then maybe Matthew would have been fun. Maybe we could have made it work. But there had been a Nate. And my heart wasn’t ready.

  “Great event,” Matthew said with his straight white teeth smile. />
  “Yes it was. I couldn’t be more pleased with the turn out.”

  “Never had an event here so successful.”

  That fact made me beam with pride. I may have gotten this job because of Blythe but being successful at it was important to me. I wanted them to be glad they hired me.

  “I’m glad tomorrow is Sunday. I need a lazy day at home.”

  “I can imagine after today. What about tonight? You headed home?”

  I had thought about going to Live Bay. Having a drink, visiting with friends, being normal. Things I rarely did anymore.

  “Not sure,” I replied honestly.

  “Want to go get a drink?”

  Here it was. The question. It wasn’t a date. Just drinks. I could invite him to Live Bay. We may enjoy each other’s company. It could be good for me.

  “I was thinking of going to see some friends at Live Bay. You want to come with me?”

  The smile was back on his face. I wished I felt that excited about this. Instead it felt wrong. I couldn’t back out now.

  “Sounds fun.”

  Great. He was coming. Okay. I asked him, now I just had to get through it.

  “I’m headed out the door. You ready?” I tried to sound happy.

  “Yeah, already closed up my section.”

  We started for the door and my brain was racing trying to come up with an excuse to cancel. I didn’t want to do this. I wanted to go home