Watch Me Fall(16)

“Fine. Will you see the girls tomorrow?”

He saw them every Wednesday night. “Why the hell wouldn’t I?”

“Go ahead and pick them up from school, if you want.”

“All right.” They hung up then, with a ton of angry words left unsaid on her part, he was sure. But, as she’d once told him, she was sick of the fight. She never won. What she didn’t realize was that he didn’t either. At least, living like this damn sure didn’t feel like a victory of any sort. It felt like his goddamn heart was being torn from his chest. Aching over what he couldn’t have, how he’d allowed that pain to fester and rot through every good thing in his life. Tearing apart his family, his kids, hurting a good woman who loved him.

Wednesday afternoon, his daughters climbed up into the backseat of his truck at the elementary school with grim faces. They buckled their seat belts with barely a word, each staring out her respective window as rain drooled down and he questioned them about their day and what they’d learned. Finally, his knuckles white on the steering wheel, he asked, “What’s the matter?”

It was Mia, sitting on the passenger side, who met his gaze in the rearview mirror. He couldn’t mistake the little spark of accusation in his daughter’s eyes. “Momma cried all night.”

Fuck it. He gave up.



***



Work profoundly sucked the rest of that week. Ghost was moody; Janelle was quiet. Tay was his usual self, as far as Starla could tell, but he usually fed off Ghost’s bullshit, and Ghost wasn’t dishing it out. Plus, it rained. Every day. It cast a gloom across everything. The sky was such a heavy lead gray, day after day, that she wondered if the sun even existed behind the bank of storm clouds anymore. Maybe it had gone out, like any hope she’d fostered since her Sunday-night dinner.

Jared had made no attempt whatsoever to contact her. She was angry for even allowing herself to feel disappointment. A good guy, a devoted father, someone who was husband material—guys like that weren’t interested in her. And, hey, it was okay. She wasn’t usually interested in guys like that. But she’d kind of liked this one. Maybe she should’ve put herself out there a little more when she had the chance. Obviously, she hadn’t made much of an impression.

The weekend passed with little incident, except for the screaming match she and Doug got into when he spilled beer all over the couch she’d paid for. Maybe Julie didn’t care if their shit got ruined and the house smelled like a brewery, but Starla did. She was called everything in the exchange from a bitch to a slut to a cunt, and while she matched him in the name-calling department, he stunned even her with his vitriol. It left her shaken. Julie was at work and didn’t witness the explosion, so naturally she would adopt her typical “he says one thiiiing/you say anotherrrr/I wasn’t there so I don’t knowwww” stance. Starla had left, driving around aimlessly for a while, then hanging out at Dermamania with a cheap bottle of merlot, drawing and drinking and blaring music as loud as she fucking wanted. She considered sleeping there, but that asshole wasn’t going to chase her from her own bed. He brooded in silence when she came back, and they managed to successfully ignore each other for the rest of the weekend.

“I’ve got to get away from here,” she confided to Janelle the following Tuesday as the two of them stood in the break room for their coffee fix. “Out of my house, out of here—” She gestured around. “Things couldn’t suck any harder right now.”

“It’ll get better,” her pixie-ish coworker assured her sympathetically. “Babe, find another roommate. Put out an ad or something. I wish you could crash with me until you find one. I just do not have the space.”

“Oh, I know. That wasn’t what I was getting at.” The last thing she wanted was the added guilt of being a burden on her friend. Jan had a cute little studio, perfect for one person and only one person, and Jan liked it that way. Starla couldn’t blame her. If she could find a little nest that was all her own, she would never leave it and never let anyone inside.

When the sound of the side door opening reached them, the girls frowned at each other. It was always locked unless one of them had stepped out. Starla walked to the break room door and stuck her head out into the hallway, sucking in a breath as she saw Brian turn the corner to disappear into his office. Candace’s voice drifted out too, laughing at something he’d said. She must have gone in before him.

Janelle gave a squeal and brushed around Starla on her way out. “I bet they brought the baby!”

Starla, realizing her mouth had gone desert dry, swallowed around the lump building in her throat. Get out, get out, gotta get out. Yep.

She absolutely did not think she could face the physical product of Brian and Candace’s immense love without going into screaming hysterics. The happy sounds of reunion   drifted in from the office, Janelle continuing to squeal, Candace laughing, Brian no doubt beaming his fatherly pride.

I can’t. I can’t, I can’t.

“Starla, where did you go? Come see!” Janelle called.

You bitch. I can’t. I fucking can’t. I—

Before she could finish the thought, Candace’s pretty face appeared in front of her, and the other girl crushed her in a hug. “Oh, I’ve missed you! Why haven’t you come to see us?”

“I… Busy, you know.”

Candace released her, and thank God she didn’t scrutinize her stricken face too closely. “I know, it’s been terrible on you guys. Well, we’re back, at least part-time. We’ve both been going a little stir-crazy, I think.”

Starla had to wonder, given Janelle’s comment about Brian needing to come back soon, if there wasn’t more to it than stir-craziness. “But it’s only been a month. You can’t feel up to it yet, surely?”

“I feel fine.” Candace gave a shrug, and indeed, she looked fine. If anything, pregnancy had only accentuated the bangin’ curves she’d always had. She wore familiar destructed jeans, so she was already back in her old clothes. “Besides, what do I do but sit behind a desk? Lyric can come with me. He’s not much of a crier, so he shouldn’t disturb you guys.” She smiled, putting a hand on Starla’s arm. “Has everything been okay with you?”

“Yeah, great.” The lie came out more easily than she’d thought it would.

“I’m glad. Now come meet your nephew!” Candace laughed as she said it, a reference to how she thought of Starla as the big sister she’d never had. It only twisted the knife currently lodged in Starla’s chest. Candace grasped her arm and propelled her down the hall toward the office, and it was all Starla could do not to dig her heels in. She could do this, though. She’d been doing it for years, wearing the mask. She should be an old pro by now. The mask should be a permanent fixture on her face.

Brian turned and grinned at Starla as Candace ushered her in, that smile dazzling against his olive skin. He held a little blue-blanket-swaddled bundle in his heavily inked arms. Her ovaries fucking detonated. “Holy shit,” she blurted before she could get a grasp on the words, and everyone laughed, not taking it for what it was: her reaction to the most beautifully heartbreaking sight she’d ever seen in her entire life.

“What’s the matter?” he said, not losing that devastating smile. Or those dimples.

“Oh, I just…I just…I’m so fucking happy for you!” And she did what was expected of her, rushing forward to give him a side-hug, careful not to jostle his son in his arms. A perfect little face gazed up from the blankets, pink cheeked and dark eyed. As flawless as his daddy. A mop of hair as black as Brian’s. The mouth, though, was a little rosebud, much like Candace’s. At least Janelle had tears in her eyes, so no one thought anything of it when Starla’s own eyes welled up.

“Aww,” Candace said, reaching over the desk to yank tissues from the holder and distributing them to the girls. “I love you guys. These have been the happiest days of my life.”

“You’re going to make the coolest, most amazing parents,” Janelle said. “I have hope for humanity at last.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.” Brian laughed. “But we’ll do our best. For the sake of humanity.”

Ghost’s bald head popped in the door. “What’s all the damn squealing about? Oh.” He strode in, leaning over to peek inside the bundle of blankets. “My little man! He’s looking more like me every day.”

“Dude,” Brian said sinisterly as the others laughed, “be glad I’m holding my infant son right now, or I’d punch you directly in the dick.” Lyric took that moment to let out an impressive wail. “Get out of his face. You’re scaring him.”

“Starla, he has your lungs,” Ghost observed, stepping back. Starla smiled sweetly and gave him the bad finger.

Brian glanced between the two of them and handed Lyric off to Candace, who cuddled him up and cooed at him. “All right,” he said as he dug a bottle out of the diaper bag sitting on the desk and handed it over to her. “Is anyone out front?”