Page 20 of His Bittersweet Regret

“My son did what?” Kathy all but yelled in my ear.

“Please, tell me you’re exaggerating, Ry,” Mr. Kennedy said.

“Nope. Opal here seems to think that he didn’t realize he took the money with him, but how could he not? Half of it was hers. She’s been struggling without a car. Walking in the rain to work while pregnant, walking to and from the grocery store too. And you should ask her how she gets to her doctor appointments that are two miles away from the apartment.”

“Opal! Why didn’t you tell us?”

I turned to look at Kathy then, my anger bubbling up to the surface. Or maybe it was my pride raging inside me. “Why would I? It was your son who left me because your other sons convinced him that screwing every other woman in town was going to be better than being in a relationship with me. It was your sons who thought my pregnancy was a damn joke. The only boy you raised right was Ryker, and no offense, but I thought that about Marsh at one point too, so give it time and he’s liable to be influenced by the others as well.”

Kathy looked away from me as she sobbed. “Now, Opal, I understand you’re hurt, and some members of my family have done you wrong, but there’s no need to take it out on the ones who haven’t.”

“Haven’t you?” I asked as I stood from the couch. “Haven’t you all? Not a single one of you checked up on me. Ryker wouldn’t have either if he hadn’t run into me that day. No one cared, and now you think that I should have trusted any of you with my circumstances, or expect that you might help to make them better, when it was this family that made them so bad to begin with?”

No one had an argument for that. I turned to Ryker then. “I’d leave on my own, but as you pointed out, it’s a bit far for me to walk. Please, take me home.”

Mr. Kennedy stood. “You stay son. I’ll take Opal home.”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

“And why is that?”

“Because this is all your fault.”

“Excuse me?” He bellowed, completely taken aback.

“You’re the reason that their taunts and jabs at Marsh worked.” I explained while pointing an accusatory finger toward the twins.

“Don’t, Opal.” Brixton pleaded.

“No, son. I’d love to know why Opal thinks I’m at fault here.”

“Your children overheard you and Kathy arguing about your secretary and how you thought you were falling in love with her. They overheard your conversations and fights about how you and Kathy got together too young and never experienced anything else. Why do you think the twins were pushing Marsh so hard? Why do you think he finally listened to them? Marsh didn’t want to become you, and regret being with me, in twenty or thirty years.”

Kathy’s sobs grew louder as Mr. Kennedy plopped back down into the chair he’d been sitting in moments ago. He buried his face in his hands and to everyone’s surprise, started crying. For the first time all night, Bastion put his phone down. It was then that I realized the bastard had been filming us. I’d had enough.

I took my phone out and called Bethany’s mom to come get me. Beth had picked up a shift at the hospital and wouldn’t be able to do it, but I knew her mom had off. I left the Kennedy family to pick up the pieces of their own drama, while once again contemplating whether moving to live with my parents would be the best option. No one followed me outside the house. Nor did anyone come to see if I managed to get off safely. They were most likely too wrapped up in themselves to worry about little old me. Never mind the fact that their drama had not only bled into my life, but absolutely ruined it.

12

Marsh

“Are you ready to get out of here?” I asked, knowing full well that we hadn’t even eaten yet.

“Sure. Do you want to just go back to my place and talk?” Monica asked. With a nod of my head, I agreed to that.

What the hell was I doing, keeping myself from really being with other women all this time, when my ex-girlfriend had apparently moved on to someone else right away? Sure, I’d dated, even made out with someone, but the thought of Opal had always stopped me from being able to go that final step toward being truly intimate with another woman.

She had not had that same problem.

How could she have moved on so quickly? And to a man who wouldn’t even stand up and take responsibility for his actions?

“Let’s go,” I offered my hand to Monica. The beautiful blond looked nothing like Opal, and for that, I was thankful. She was tall, slender, had more curves than I’d ever really been attracted to before. Truthfully, when I’d set out on this date, I’d done so to prove to myself – once again – that no one could measure up to my former girlfriend. We were at the end of our six months apart, and I wanted it to be over, in the dullest way possible, which was why I’d accepted the invitation of a date with Monica. I knew nothing would ever go too far with her because I wasn’t all that attracted to her.

All things considered, I was going to give it my all and finally fuck another woman. Didn’t matter that it was Monica. I needed to get all the pent-up emotions out of me. I needed to fuck Opal out of my head and my heart because apparently, she’d already done the same. Maybe that was the real reason she blocked my number all those months ago. She had already replaced me, or thought she had. Then, when she fell pregnant, she knew there would be no going back anyway.

Those were the thoughts that plagued my mind the entire drive back to Monica’s place, which ended up being across the street from where Opal lived. I hadn’t realized before, that she lived that close to our old apartment because I’d picked Monica up from her parent’s house, where she’d been visiting when I’d agreed to our impromptu date.

Once we managed to get up to her apartment, everything went from zero to sixty in seconds. One minute we were standing there, just inside her door staring at one another, the next, clothes were flying in every direction.

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