Page 25 of His Bittersweet Regret

“I’m sorry, man. I thought you were giving it all up for her.”

“So? What if I was?” I scraped my hands down my face and then winced at the sting when I met the swollen portion of my cheek where my brother had clocked me good at least once. “Why couldn’t you have let me do my own thing? I’m not like either one of you. I never even slept with any of those girls I went on dates with because I couldn’t stop thinking about Opal.”

“Then why were you at Monica’s place?”

I blew out a breath. “Momentary insanity that I will never be able to forget, and not in a good way. When I saw Ry outside the café with Opal, I thought she was pregnant with another man’s baby.”

“You’re an idiot!” My mother huffed in exasperation.

“Yeah, we’ve established that. I figured if she had been pregnant with my baby, she would have contacted me about it, though.” I turned narrowed eyes on my brothers then. “If I had known she had contacted me, I never would have slept with Monica. I’d have never dated any other women, and I would have gone directly back to Opal from the very beginning.”

Both twins looked chastised, but it really wasn’t enough. It had been entirely my fault that I left Opal. I was the dumbass that listened to their bullshit and let it erode away at the feelings I had for my girlfriend. But the fact that they hid her pregnancy from me, that was unforgivable. And it was the one thing that probably cost me any chance at ever reconciling with the love of my life.

Bastion stood and came to hand me his phone. “I think you should watch this before you do anything else.”

“What’s this?”

“I wanted to make sure you got the full story from the other side of things earlier, so I recorded everything Opal had to say.”

I didn’t know whether to be thankful or angry with him for recording what was basically her confession. It was her version of events since I’d left her, or maybe even before that. I got ready to hit play, when my father’s large hand moved to stop me. There was moisture gathered in his eyes as he glanced down at the screen.

“You’re going to want to watch that in private, Son.”

My mom’s accompanying sniffle confirmed what he was saying, so I took my brother’s phone and walked into the den, where the curtains were still pulled shut so that my father didn’t have to deal with a glare on the television when he watched college ball earlier.

I knew the heartache that I experienced while listening to Opal tell her story couldn’t even compare to what she’d been through, what I’d put her through, and I’d never felt so worthless in all my life.

“How in the hell am I supposed to make up for all that?” I asked the quiet room when I got to the end of the video.

“Going forward, you need to do your best to be the man she used to know. You’re also going to have to follow her lead, and go at her pace this time.” I glanced up to see my dad leaning against the entryway to the room. “You told her that you were taking a break for six months before. She didn’t get a say in that, Son. It’s up to her now, how long it takes to forgive you.”

“Do you think she can ever forgive me?” I stopped him from answering, so that I could explain what Opal saw after leaving their house earlier that day. My father’s head hung in shame, as if he had been the one to offer her that final slight and disrespect.

“Do you want honesty or hope?”

Well, that said it all, didn’t it? “Honesty. I think we’ve all had enough lies and miscommunications.”

“You would be the luckiest bastard alive, if that girl ever gave you a second chance. If, for some reason, you hit that particular lottery, you better hold on and never stop working to prove yourself.” Well, that didn’t sound too bad. “But, Son, she was talking about leaving and moving to Oregon with her parents earlier, so you may never get that chance.”

“What?”

“You heard it on that recording,” he reminded me.

“Yeah, but Ryker talked her out of it.”

“He did, and then she saw proof of you with another woman. One who held your underwear in her hands, and pretty much painted the picture for her of what the two of you had been up to – after you saw her pregnant and standing on the street in front of the café and didn’t run to check on her. You damned yourself today, boy. Good and fuckin’ proper too. Wouldn’t surprise me a bit if that girl was home packing a bag as we speak, and let me be clear on this, I wouldn’t blame her one bit. After the hurt our family has laid at her feet, I’d probably do the same if I was in her shoes.”

“She’s carrying your grandchild,” I growled at him.

“Yep. And since our family wronged her, I guess we’ll have to suck up the expense to go see that baby when it gets here.” My father tapped the wall and then turned his back on me. There was no denying who his loyalty belonged to. Truthfully, I was thankful that someone was in Opal’s corner, because from what I heard on that video, she had only had Beth and her mom all this time, until my little brother – of all people – stepped up to be the best fucking uncle a seventeen-year-old kid could be. He’d done better than I had.

My dad poked his head around the corner, anger still present in his gaze when it landed on me. “And boy, you better give that girl her damn savings back. I can’t believe you walked away from her and took all that money with you.”

The tips of my ears immediately burned with shame at his reprimand. “I swear, I didn’t even think about it at the time.”

“Didn’t think much about leaving her with no transportation when you took all the money either, did you? You just thought about yourself, every step of the way. You want honesty, Marshall? You don’t deserve her because you’re selfish.” He didn’t wait for my answers, and honestly, he didn’t need one. There was no possible way to make me feel any lower than I already did.

It did, however, give me the idea for a plan that just might put me in Opal’s good graces once again. More importantly, it would give her some security and a safe place to bring our son home to when the time came. Not that the apartment we had shared wasn’t safe, but traversing three flights of stairs with a baby and other things would be a challenge for her that she didn’t need.

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