Be Here Now: A Cedar Creek Novel (14 page)

“Bullshit!” Loreley spat again.

“It’s not bullshit! It’s the fucking truth! I loved you. I still love you. Why in the fuck would I cheat on you?”

“Oh, I don’t know! Because you’re a selfish jerk who didn’t get his own way?” She yelled sarcastically.

Jason looked to the sky, seeking patience.

Fucking hell this woman was so fucking stubborn!

Before he could figure out a way to get through to her though, she spoke again, not yelling this time. No, it was worse, the way her voice sounded was so much worse than yelling.

It was broken.

Crushed.

And resigned.

“You know what? It doesn’t even matter.”

Jason’s head snapped back down and he narrowed his eyes on her. “Of course it matters. You shut me out because you thought I cheated on you. We would still be together if—”

“Oh, no. We wouldn’t be.” She sounded sure about that. Definite. Her voice was low and full of something else…hatred? Jason flinched.

“Even if you didn’t cheat on me, how long exactly did it take you before you forgot about me and moved on?” Jason clamped his mouth shut. He knew what she was referring to.

“Yeah, I thought so. But that doesn’t matter either.”

There it was again: the hint at something. The hint at the secret that everyone seemed too scared to tell him.

“Would you fucking stop talking in riddles? Spit it out! What made you hate me so much that you can hardly bear to look at me? Why, Loreley? Why are you so sure we wouldn’t be together right now?”

“You know. Stop pretending you don’t.”

“I don’t know or I wouldn’t fucking ask.”

“Lore—” Chris tried to mediate, but neither of them paid him any attention.

“Stop playing this game, Jason. Stop it and leave.”

“I’m not playing a game, Loreley. I have no fucking clue what is going on.”

The hate in her eyes intensified as they stared at each other silently.

“Lore, I think—”

“No, Chris. He wants to do this? We’ll do it. He wants me to say it? I’ll say it. Maybe then he’ll leave.” She didn’t take his eyes from his. “You abandoned me. You turned your back on me when I needed you and abandoned us.”

“I didn’t. Those messages—”

“So you
do
remember the messages.”

I shook my head. “I don’t. Chris told me about them last night—”

“Lore!” They both heard shouted from across the street in a familiar boom. It was Cal.

Fucking finally.

He jogged towards them and stopped close, his eyes on his sister.

“You both need to calm down and take this inside.”

“What?” Loreley snapped as her eyebrows shot up in disbelief.

“We need to go inside and talk,” Cal repeated. His gaze swung to Jason and he studied him for a second before he turned it back on Loreley.

“Cal is right, Lore, let’s go inside and talk about this calmly,” Chris said soothingly and beseechingly.

“No way. He—”

“He doesn’t know, Lore. You can’t just throw it in his face like that.” Cal again.

“Watch me.”

Cal leaned in closer to his sister. “You’re not hearing what I’m saying to you, Loreley. Jason doesn’t know anything about Jesse.”

Jesse? Who was Jesse?

Before he could ask, Loreley spoke again. “I’m aware of that, Cal, since I never talked to him again after I saw him screwing around and realized he really didn’t give a shit about his child.”

Wait. What?

“What are you talking about? Who is Jesse?” But Jason didn’t need anyone to answer his question. Before he was even done asking, all the pieces fell into place. Everything made sense now. Why Loreley had tried to get in touch with him a few months after she had left; why she had come to one of his gigs to talk to him even though she still thought he had cheated on her. It was obvious now, and Jason wanted to kick his own ass for not having figured it out sooner.

Loreley had been pregnant.

She glared at him.

“Lore—” Cal tried again, but she ignored him, and with what she said next, pulled the ground from under Jason’s feet.

“Jesse was your son you didn’t give one shit about. But don’t worry. He’s dead now.”

Jason heard Cal swear under his breath beside him and Chris pull in a shocked breath. He heard them both talk, to him or Loreley, he didn’t know. He couldn’t comprehend anything while his mind was trying to make sense of what Loreley had just said.

He had a son.

A son who Loreley had kept from him.

A son who had died.

The thought made him sick.

Sick with hurt.

Sick with loss.

Sick with disappointment.

Sick with anger.

He came back out of his thoughts and turned his heat filled glare on Loreley. She was watching him with an expression on her face that he didn’t want to interpret. It was remorse, remorse and shock and sorrow. But Jason didn’t want to see any of that coming from her right now.

All he was interested in was to somehow get rid of that strangling feeling he had in his throat, the weight that was sitting on his chest and was threatening to choke him.

And he did that by lashing out at her.

“Tell me you didn’t keep my son from me.” He didn’t recognize his own voice. It was cold but hot with anger at the same time.

Loreley flinched.

Good
.

Jason stepped closer to her and leaned into her face until their noses almost touched and repeated his words on a hiss, “Tell me you didn’t fucking keep my son from me.” It was a threat as much as it was a plea.

“I didn’t. I called you, left messages. Emailed you.”

“I obviously never got those messages, Loreley. I would have never ignored you, would have never abandoned you and our child. And you should have known that, Loreley. You knew me. You knew everything about me. You knew me down to my soul. You should have known that there was no way I would have ignored those messages.”

He watched as Loreley’s eyes filled with panic.

“I thought you cheated on me. You—”

“No, Loreley. You also should have known that I would never cheat on you. I can be an asshole and say things I don’t mean, but we were committed to each other and I would have never hurt you like that. We were going to get married and spend the rest of our lives together. We talked about our future all the time. What? You think I would throw all that away for some groupie pussy?”

Loreley didn’t say anything, but Jason could see it in her eyes. That’s exactly what she had thought. She had been convinced that he had thrown them away to get himself some. After everything they had talked about, after all the times he had told her that she was the one for him, the one who made him happy, the one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, the one he couldn’t imagine living without. After all that, all it took was one misunderstanding and she had stopped believing in him, had stopped believing in
them
, and as a consequence, had kept his son from him, a son who he would never have a chance to meet now.

And that hurt.

It hurt like a motherfucker.

Jason let her see just how much as he kept staring into her eyes. Tears welled up in hers as she stared right back at him. She made as if to move into him but Jason stepped away from her. She froze.

“Jason—”

“You should have told me. You should have done everything in your power to talk to me,” he interrupted her. He wasn’t interested in her apology. It was too late for that.

He turned his head and locked his eyes first with Cal’s then with Chris’.

Cal stayed silent, just watched him carefully and apologetically. Chris did the same.

He didn’t want their apologies either.

This time it was him, who without another look, turned on his heel and walked to his car, got in, and drove off.

“What have I done?” I whispered in horror as I watched Jason drive away. Silent tears were running down my cheeks.

How the tables had turned.

Less than five minutes ago, I had been the one who had been betrayed by the love of her life, who had been hurt, whose heart had been shredded.

Now, it was Jason who was experiencing the pain of betrayal.

But it was so much worse.

Not only had he just found out that the love of his life had stopped believing in him because of some misunderstanding that she was too blind to see as such, but he had also just learned that that same woman hadn’t tried real hard to get a hold of him when she learned she was carrying their child, and as a result of that, he would never get the chance to get to know his own son.

And that woman was me.

I had done that to him.

To us.

To Jesse.

Jason was right.

I should have known that he would have never cheated on me. If I had really loved him the way I said I did, I would have tried to get to the bottom of it instead of running away.

He was absolutely right.

Had I not run away and shut him out, we would have still been together when I found out I was pregnant.

We would have been a family together.

Or if I had tried harder to get in touch with him when I did find out.

Even if he
had
cheated on me and we were over, I should have known he wasn’t the kind of man to turn his back on his own child.

But instead, I had wanted to believe that Jason Sanders was a jerk who didn’t deserve to be a part of Jesse’s and my life.

It was all my fault.

A mistake I would have to live with now for the rest of my life.

“What have I done?” I whispered again, my voice conveying exactly how broken and empty I was feeling inside.

Strong arms went around me and pulled me into a hard chest. I felt Cal’s chin rest on the top of my head as he squeezed me tight.

I closed my eyes, hoping this had all just been a bad dream even though I knew it wasn’t.

I had been a bitch and had wanted to hurt Jason. I had been so wrapped up in my own head and too blind to see that he had not been playing a game, that he really hadn’t known what I was talking about.

I had been a bitch and had said ugly things with the sole intention of hurting him.

And boy had I succeeded.

I lifted my head out of Cal’s chest and leaned back so I could see his face. He tipped his chin down to see mine.

“I behaved like a bitch.”

Cal clenched his teeth in what I took as confirmation that yes, he agreed that I had indeed behaved like a bitch and he was disappointed in me.

“Yes, Lore, you did. But it’s understandable why you did it.”

I shook my head. “No, Cal, it isn’t. The things I said to him,
how
I said them to him, it was ugly. Nobody deserves that. Nobody deserves to find out about the death of their son like that, no matter what they have done.”

Cal looked at me with serious eyes, not saying anything, which again I took as agreement. I felt my lower lip start to tremble.

“What am I gonna do, Cal? How am I gonna make this right?”

“I don’t know, Lore. I don’t know.” He pulled me back against his chest and rubbed my back soothingly as silent tears ran down my cheeks. I was in complete shock. Everything I had believed for the past six years had been a lie. The look of absolute horror and shock and then pain and betrayal that had flitted over Jason’s face had told me everything I needed to know.

He didn’t cheat on me.

He hadn’t known I was pregnant.

He loved me and would have never left us.

But I took his chance of being part of our family away from him by keeping the existence of our son from him.

I betrayed him, betrayed both of us, and betrayed Jesse by wanting to believe the worst of his father.

I couldn’t blame him if he hated me now and would never want to see me again.

Because what I had done was truly unforgivable.

Cal held me like that for a few minutes before he turned us and walked us into my house. I looked at Chris then. He had wanted to talk to me that morning, had said it was important, had urged me to talk to Jason. He had known that Jason wasn’t to blame for what happened. He had known and wanted to tell me. And instead of trusting my best friend that he had my best interests at heart and listening to him, I had gotten my feelings hurt and got mad at him for choosing Jason’s side.

I was an even bigger bitch than I thought I was.

The silent tears turned into not so silent sobs.

“He’s right Chris. I should have known. I should have—”

“No, Lore,” Chris interrupted me. He came to sit next to me on the couch and took my hand. “There was no way for you to know that that woman wasn’t with Jason that morning. And there was no way for you to know that he didn’t get your messages, that he didn’t know you were pregnant.”

I shook my head at him. “I gave up on him—”

“No, Lore,” he interrupted me again. “You couldn’t have known. Don’t blame yourself for what happened. It was a misunderstanding. And it’s not like
he
hunted you down to talk to you. He gave up on you just like you gave up on him. Worse, because you actually thought you had a reason. He was a jerk to you that night, but you still went back to talk to him. You didn’t know Murphy was staying at Jason’s place, so how would you know that woman was with Murphy and not with him?”