Page 4 of In All My Dreams

Now

The flight from Los Angeles to Dallas is roughly three hours. Auden stared out the window for about a half hour before she fell asleep on me. Now, we are in the rental car doing thefinal two-hour trek of this journey. Auden is asleep again in the back seat. She must have stayed up all night due to excitement.

At least on the flight, I was able to catch up on work and even get ahead of schedule so that I wasn’t trying to work and keep Auden in sight at all times while we are at the manor.

Being a journalist in the hustle and bustle life of LA pays the bills, but the dream is still to write full time as a fiction author. So far, my manuscript has sat untouched for years, while thecelebrity spottedarticles and whatever else gets thrown my way get written and submitted five times a day.

It’s a far cry from where I want to be, but it’s enough for now. Plus, being able to work from home has had its many benefits. I’m able to walk Auden to and from school, which is conveniently down the road from our apartment. I have time to run whatever errands I have for the day and still make it home in time to get a few articles submitted and make sure Auden has a healthy dinner and a bedtime story every night. As far as being a single mom goes, I feel damn lucky to have the life we have.

I’m terrified it’s all about to implode the moment my past meets my present in just a couple short hours. I keep looking back at Auden in the rearview mirror, worry and uneasiness still plaguing my every breath. Every mile marker we pass adds another knot of anxiety in my gut.

I don’t miss home, but I’ve missed Texas. The drive is full of bluebonnets and blooming wildflowers of every color. Bright green trees looking their best in the peak of spring, with farms and livestock on both sides of the road. Traffic is nonexistent here once we get out of Dallas. Nothing like the stop-and-go traffic in California.

The air is cleaner here, despite the blast of humidity that makes my face flush and Auden’s dark hair frizz much like my own. I rolled my window down the moment we hit the backroads towardhome.

A home I despise, and with it, a father I no longer recognize.

As I drive, I can’t stop my mind from wandering, coming up with insane confrontations I know will never happen.

I hate that I have this slight swell of hope in my chest that Ian is there. While on the rational side, I hope Ian is long gone; it would save me a few lies already ready to roll off my tongue.

But knowing him, he’s probably still living at Crane Manor and working on the oil rigs alongside his father, those dreams of becoming a doctor shoved aside.

Will he recognize his own daughter?

A hateful, angry part of me doesn’t want to tell him Auden is his. She inherited most of my looks. Her hair is dark like mine,and his, and she has my pointed nose and mouth, but those hazel eyes definitely aren’t mine.

Is it wrong for me to lie? Tell him that I slept with someone after he broke my heart and left me? It’s not like he came around again in the last five years. Maybe I’ve moved on and found someone new.

Someone who also held constellations in his eyes. Someone that loved every broken and damaged part of me the way Ian did, because he was just as fractured as I was on the inside.

We were supposed to have a life together. A future I thought we had for a small moment when he did come find me in California six years ago. Only to wake up alone after he promised me forever between tantalizing caresses and heated kisses. He took my heart when he decided to tear the rug out from under me by leaving in the middle of the night with nothing but a note on my bedside table.

A note that said he made a mistake, and this was his goodbye to me. That what we felt could never last because Crane Manor would always have a hold on him, and he wanted me to escape it and never look back.

I told myself for years I was okay with never going back home again, especially after he broke what was left of my already ruined heart. I felt that promise etch itself even deeper into my skin the minute I saw those two pink lines show up on that pregnancy test just a few weeks after Ian left me for good.

Every day, I wonder what life we could have had, though. Would he have been excited or scared shitless like I was? Would he have gone running back to Crane Manor, or would the news of being a father have finally freed him of that wicked place?

If I would have called him when I found out, would he be here with me now? Raising our daughter together, or would I be exactly where I am now, with two broken hearts to care for instead of just my own?

Auden thinks her dad was a soldier and that he was killed helping people. She had never really asked or brought him up, so the lie was effortless on my part when she asked about her father last year. Sometimes, I chastise myself for telling her he was dead, but I didn’t want her growing up feeling like she was unwanted and unloved by him. I never planned on reaching out to Ian and telling him about her, so why break her heart more by letting her believe her father abandoned us by choice?

Abandonedmeby choice—I never told him that she existed.

I’ve done everything in my power to make up for the fact that she only has me, and I think I’m doing an okay job. She won’t start hating me until those preteen hormones kick in, so for now, I’m soaking up every moment of this version of her.

I feel my resolve strengthening as I pull into the wrought-iron gates of Crane Manor, listening to the gravel crunch under the tires. I swear the concrete lion statues on the pillars stare directly into my soul as I slowly drive past them, just like they did when I left this prison a decade ago.

I pull the car off to the side of the gravel path that leads to the house. I’m not ready to come face first with the ghosts that stilllive there. I thought I was strong enough to do this, but clearly I was wrong. My vision blurs as the tears threaten to break the dam I’ve built around my heart for the last ten years.

I don’t want to be here.

I don’t want my daughter to be here.

Deep breath in, Georgie girl.

I hear my mother’s voice as the breeze hits my face, caressing my damp cheeks. I may never know why my mother did what she did. Why she let the demon's voice ring louder than her daughter’s, but I know in my heart that she loved me, fiercely.

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