Frayed (Connections, #4)(71)

I nod. “S’belle, Bell, I mean, got pregnant that night I spent with her in college. She had the baby and gave it up for adoption.”

My sister’s hand flies to her mouth.

“Yeah, I was a little shocked too.” I try to keep the edge off my sarcasm.

“Let’s sit down,” she whispers, walking toward the rocks and choosing one. I sit beside her and bend to sift the sand with my fingers.

“How do you feel about it?”

“How do you think I feel?”

“You’re upset?” she asks.

“Fuck yes, I’m upset. There’s been a kid out there in the world for the past six years that’s mine and I never knew he or she existed until yesterday.”

She takes my hand. “What did she say?”

“She told me she gave birth on St. Patrick’s Day and gave the baby away.”

She looks at me for the longest time. “Are you sure it was yours?”

“Yes, I mean no,” I stammer.

“But she told you it was?”

“Yes.”

“And you believe her?”

“I have no reason to think she’d lie about that. What would be the purpose now?”

She nods, agreeing. “What else did she say?”

“She said she didn’t want to tell me. She wanted to leave the past in the past.”

“Why didn’t she tell you before?”

“She said she tried to contact me, but I didn’t call her back.”

“Did she?”

“Serena, come on. Yeah, she called me, but . . .” I stop, not really sure what the but is. That she didn’t try hard enough, try often enough?

“Where did you leave it?”

I drop her hand and cradle my head. “Nowhere. I left her standing there. I was so f*cking pissed. I had a right to know.” I glance over at her. “I had a right to know.”

“Yes, you did, but put yourself in her place. You were with someone else. She was young and I’m sure she was scared. It must have been hard for her. Shit, it was hard for me when I found out I was pregnant. I was twenty and scared shitless—scared to tell Jason, scared to tell Mom, and so scared to have a baby.”

“Yeah, but you had him. And you kept him . . . .” My voice trails off.

“Yes, but my circumstances were different. I was with Jason. He was there to help me through all my doubts.”

I run my hands through my hair. “Are you defending her?”

She gives me a stern look. “No. I’m not. I just think maybe you should think a little more about her and a little less about yourself.”





CHAPTER 22


Burn

Bell

Guilt chased me for years. Guilt for pursuing a guy that belonged to someone else, guilt for asking a friend to drive me home from a bar and being oblivious of her drunken state, guilt for giving up my baby. It was a domino effect—I chased someone I shouldn’t have and wound up pregnant. When I found out, I couldn’t wait to tell him in hopes he might be as thrilled as I was and that it might change things between us. But in my haste to get home to meet him, one of my friends died, and the guilt was more than I could stand. How could I raise a child? I was irresponsible and incapable—I was sure of that. And with that realization came the certainty that someone else could give my baby the life I knew I couldn’t.

I never blamed anyone for my actions but myself—not my dead father, not my mother, not my brothers, and not any former lover. I just swam in my own self-condemnation. It hung around the fringes of my very existence. For years, it teased me, taunted me. It haunted me to the point that it almost dragged me under. But then something happened, something that made me realize I could let it go. That something was a friendship with a very special person—Dahlia London. Her kindness and understanding helped me see through my pain and made me understand it was okay to move on. With her support and that of my family, I finally found direction in my life. I stopped flailing and decided it was time to grow up.

Don’t get me wrong—the constant guilt is still there. Time can never fully heal those wounds. But I had come to accept my decision and because of that, I was able to start anew. It hadn’t been easy. My wounds ran deep. Yet somehow I was confident that I could continue to heal. My choices had led me to where I ended up. I had accepted that. When I started down this path, I was a young, immature woman. And once I made my decision, I was a lost girl who looked for love in all the wrong places.

Now I’ve turned my life around. I’m doing great—well, not great but really well. Sure, my job sucks. Working for Tate Wyatt started as a dream job, but the novelty wore off the more his attention toward me bled into possessiveness. I am handling it, though. And I don’t really love living here. However, I’m not home that often and my family stops by or I visit them often.

But the hardest thing about telling Ben is that I’m feeling lost again, and I can’t shake the feeling. All the memories keep swooshing around in my head and I can’t get them out. I spent all day in bed and called in sick on Monday, but Tuesday comes way too fast. I wake up from a dream. The same dream I always have but this time instead of smiling I yell, “Damn you, Ben Covington, you came back into my life with all your charm and turned my world around one minute, then upside down the next just like you did to me before.” My mind keeps repeating over and over, You should have known better. You did know better. You kept yourself at a distance. You tried so hard to stay aloof. But the more time you spent with him, the more time you wanted to spend with him. I shake my head, saying to myself, “Yeah, it’s all true but it doesn’t make it any better.”