The Problem With Heartache (37 page)

T
HE PROBLEM
with heartache is no two wounds feel the same. One can cut you, fester, infect, slowly destroying you from the inside out. It can loiter and eat away at your soul, bit by bit, day by day.

Then you can learn to trust again. You can fall, and you can think you have it under control, that things will be different, but then the knife strikes once more. And while you think you’ve already experienced the worst pain possible?

You haven’t.

And the second wound hurts like a bitch.

I sat in my room, tears falling from my eyes, wondering why. Why did Lee have to be so caught up in his past? I wasn’t even sure what it was he was afraid of. Did he owe her, in some sick way? Had she made him vow never to be happy, since he’d ruined her forever? I shook my head. Surely no one could be that self-involved.

Still, there was only one sure way to find out. I grabbed my handbag and marched down the hall till I got to Lottie’s door, hammering my fist against the wood, demanding to be let inside.

“Lottie!” I yelled after no one answered. A man down the hall stuck his head out from his door, shushing me, but for once in my life I didn’t give a damn about what other people thought. I just wanted some answers.

I kept banging and the door swung open, and an irate Lottie stood with folded arms in front of me.

“What?” she hissed. “I have a kid trying to sleep in here.”

“Whose?” I raised my eyebrows. “Lee’s or Ryan’s?”

Lottie rolled her eyes, and stretched her hand out, gesturing for me to come inside. I stormed past her and sat down on the couch. “Lottie, I thought we were friends.”

“So did I,” Lottie shout-whispered.

“So why are you so mad at me?” I asked, my voice an even tone.

“I … I’m not,” Lottie muttered, studying her feet. She walked to the fridge and poured herself a big-arse glass of wine. She didn’t offer one to me, and I didn’t ask. “I just …”

She sighed, and ran a hand through her hair. “When I took this job, I had to sign a contract saying I wouldn’t form a relationship with anyone while on tour. And I asked that Lee … m Lee wouldn’t do anything either. Not in front of Jay.”

I frowned, and bit my lip. “But it still doesn’t explain why he blames himself so much. Says he doesn’t deserve to be happy.”

“Kate, I was twenty-two. I was young, confused … I did a lot of stupid things. Things that now I couldn’t dream of.” She shuddered, as if the memory made her blood chill. “When Lee told Ryan about the baby … Ryan lost it. He changed, doing drugs—he was a different person, Kate.” Tears glazed over her eyes and she blinked them back, biting on her lip. “I said some things I regret. I told Lee it was his fault. That he should never have confronted Ryan like that, that he didn’t deserve to be happy, and that I would be watching to make sure he wasn’t.” A sob choked out from Lottie’s throat, and I wanted to hug her, but I stayed right where I was. “Kate, I didn’t know he’d hold onto that forever. But my life, raising Jay was so hard … my pride wouldn’t let me get in touch and tell him otherwise.”

We stood in silence for a few moments, me trying to digest all I’d learned, and Lottie drinking more wine. She had a sad, forlorn expression on her face, and a part of me just wanted to give her a hug, let her know that everything would be okay.

“Why did you do it, Lottie?”

She looked at me, and those green eyes of hers drilled into mine. “A lot of reasons.” She shook her head. “I loved his band. I was borderline obsessed, although I managed to keep that hidden.” She clasped her hands together. “Ryan was away a lot. We were always on and off, but he’d been doing—doing drugs, and in Lee … I guess I saw an out. I saw the boy I’d fallen in love with, but the lifestyle of someone I desperately admired. And just for one afternoon, I wanted to experience that.”

Emotions waged war within my body. I just wanted to blame her. It would be so much easier to make this all her fault.

But somehow, I couldn’t.

Everyone makes mistakes. Even if sometimes those mistakes change your entire life.

“Why haven’t you had the paternity test?” I asked in a softer voice, stepping in closer.

She gave a bitter laugh. “I don’t want to know. I couldn’t handle it if he were Ryan’s …” Lottie’s eyes got this wistful, faraway look. “And I couldn’t handle it if he wasn’t.” She sucked in a deep breath. “When I came on tour, I told Lee maybe, in time. But just … baby steps. I want him to get to know Jay first. He’s my everything.”

“You can’t hold him to this, Lottie.” I frowned. “It’s a promise he made a long time ago. People change.”

Silence washed over the room, and Lottie drained the rest of her wine. She placed the glass in the sink. “I miss my Ryan.”

I stood and walked over, rubbing small circles on her back as the older woman cried against my shoulder.

“I made a mistake,” Lottie sobbed. “I was angry, and … aside from their circumstances, they coulda been the same person. Without Ryan … without anyone, with Jay on the way … it was so, so scary. I don’t have close family, a support network like you do. Until you’ve lost your everything, you don’t know what you’d do to get a little part of that back.”

Her words resonated within me, and a part of me wanted to agree with her. If Johnny had been very similar to Lachlan then maybe,
maybe
I would have tried to work out something with him.

No
. I wouldn’t have.

Because sometimes, second best isn’t enough. Sometimes, you just have to face your fears and move on.

Lachlan taught me that.

I walked back to my room. I was a mess. My feet were heavy to lift, my limbs ached, and to my shame, so did in between my legs. I wanted to regret what we’d done, what hadn’t meant enough to Lee, since he wasn’t willing to fight for it—for
us
—but I didn’t. Was anything ever perfect in this world? Was anyone’s first time like it is in the movies, complete with a bouquet of flowers and an orgasm to boot?

I was still furious Lee had left. But it was his reasoning that made me mad, not the fact he did it after sex.

I threw myself down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. How had this all gone so horribly, horribly wrong? And how the hell could I make it right?

That was when it struck me. I couldn’t. Only Lee could decide to take that chance, and at some point, he’d deemed me not worth the effort. Not worth taking Lottie on, trying to sort things out.

A big fat tear trickled down my face, and even though I was quick to swipe it away, another followed in its wake. I hiccoughed, and it seemed to unleash a dozen more, and then I was crying, full-blown in tears over everything. I wasn’t enough for him. The only guy I’d thought was worth it; the only one I was willing to move on for …

I’d ruined everything.

More tears came, and even though I knew it wasn’t true, even though I was really starting to believe that Lachlan would want me to move on, it didn’t make the hurt any less real. I grabbed the TV remote and threw it at the wall, the loud thud giving me cause to smile.

“How dare you?” I screamed. “How dare you die and leave me to deal with
shit like this?”

My breath came in short, fast gasps, and the air cloyed my lungs, making it hard to breathe. I wanted to run, to put on my shoes and just try and exhaust the pain out of myself, but it ran so deep it crippled me. I was a shell.

I didn’t know who or what I was crying for. I was crying for Lachlan, for Lee, for how I wasn’t anything worth it. I wasn’t a risk worth taking, and even though I knew it wasn’t his fault, I couldn’t help but wonder if Lachlan had thought I wasn’t worth staying alive for?

Eventually, my sobs subsided and I was able to get my breathing under control. I went to the bathroom and washed my face, shocked at the girl staring back at me in the mirror. I was a patchwork of red and white, my eyes an intense greeny colour, and my lips puffy.

I’d thought that the pain, the grieving would have an expiry date. I gave a small smile thinking of something Stacey had told me back in tenth grade.
“According to
Cosmo
magazine, it takes exactly half the amount of time you were dating a guy to get over him.”

I smirked. By that logic, I should have let Lachlan go in month one. Less than that, almost.

But there was something special about him,
my brain argued. And it had a point. There wasn’t any handbook for grieving. You couldn’t allocate a fixed time and pattern to it.

Pull yourself together, Kate.
I widened my eyes, trying desperately to convince myself. “You are strong.”

But sometimes, life doesn’t give us time to pull ourselves together. It doesn’t give us time to be strong.

Because seconds later, my phone rang. I walked to where it sat, plugged in to charge on the bedside table, and picked it up.
Blocked
. Hmm …

“Hello?” I asked.

“Kate,” Mum gasped. “Kate, please, please come home?”

“Mum? Mum, what’s wrong?” I asked, my dialogue an overture to her symphony of choking in the background. My heart thudded in my chest, pounding against my ribcage as I prepared myself for the worst.

“It’s your father. He’s had a stroke.”