Page 13 of Chasing Blue
“You wanna discuss my eye colour right now?”
She shrugs. “Not really, but I would like to know why you fucked and run all those years ago?”
Eyes narrowed, brows pulled down, she gives me a death glare as she gets straight down to it.
“Not a word. You left that morning with a promise to see me later, and I never heard from you again. You didn’t turn up at the bar that night, not to the party, and a few days later I hear you’re having a baby with Eden Miller . . . I had to . . .” Her jaw trembles as her gaze meets mine before quickly darting away. “You fucked me in my shower without a condom . . . I had to. . . Do you know how that made me feel? I trusted you, and you lied to me.”
“Blue . . .”
“No. Let me talk. If we’re gonna work together, I need to say this. You told me you were safe; I had to go and get myself checked out. On top of the humiliation, I was already feeling because everyone in town was talking about you and Eden, I had to see my doctor and amongst other things, ask to be checked for STIs.”
Fuck. Me. This all happened a long fucking time ago, but I’ve thought about it often over the years, and like right now, I feel sick to my stomach over the way I handled it.
“I’m sorry. Scarlett, I couldn’t be sorrier. I honestly had no idea she was pregnant.” I watch as she slowly closes her eyes, and I hate that what happened back then might still be hurting her all these years later. “We’d been split up for months and it only . . . Once, it happened one time without a condom, the only time ever in my life . . .”
“Oh, apart from that other one time ever with me, right? How many other one-time-evers were there?”
She’s pacing now, and I can’t help but notice how her long black sweatshirt stretches across her arse and hips every time she turns her back. The muscles in her toned legs show through the leggings she’s wearing under the sweatshirt.
“There were no others. There wasyou,and there washer. I just . . . I know it sounds like a bullshit excuse now, but I didn’t want to drag you into my mess. You were going off to Uni. You had plans. I thought a clean break was the best thing.”
“Best for who, Jack?” She spins and leans into me as she asks. Righting herself, she takes a deep breath and squares her shoulders.
“All you had to do was let me know what was going on,” she continues quietly. “Explained things then like you’re doing now. You could’ve lied to me even.Something, anything except nothing. Anything except having people come in the bar and tell me your happy news,anythingother than having them ask, ‘haven’t you been seeing Jack?’ Any. Fucking. Thing!” She shouts the last three words, her eyes wide, fierce, and fixed on me.
“You left!” I shout back. “I called, and you didn’t pick up,” I say quieter. “I went to the bar, and your brother told me you’d left early for Sydney, and I thought it best to just leave it alone, leaveyoualone.”
“That wasalmost a weeklater. I obviously meant very little to you if it took you a fucking week to reach out.”
“I had just turned twenty-fucking-one. I’d just had the bomb dropped on me that I was about to become a father with a woman I had no fucking feelings for. Sorry if it took me a minute to get my shit together. I did what I thought was right. I stayed the fuck away and left you to live the rest of your life. Then when I finally realised that wasn’t whatIwanted, I called and called. You didn’t pick up. So, I went to your house, your brother wanted to fucking fight me on your driveway, he told me to stay the fuck away from you . . .”
“You went to my house?” she whispers the question, and the astonishment in her voice causes the hairs on my arms to stand on end.
She finally stops pacing, her voice thick with emotion when she repeats, “You went to my house?”
“Ash never told you?”
Looking like she’s about to cry, she shakes her head.
“Yes,” I tell her quietly. “I went to your house, I’d tried calling on the Monday and Tuesday after we’d had that Friday night together, but you didn’t pick up.”
“You stood me up. You fucked me Friday night then stood me up Saturday night, of course I didn’t pick up.”
“Fair enough, but then when I came to your house on the Wednesday night, your brother wanted to punch on. I wanted to tell you, explain, face to face what was going on. I didn’t want you hearing I’d got Eden pregnant from someone else,Iwanted to tell you. I wanted to explain the situation, but your brother told me to stay the fuck away, so I did. When I couldn’t anymore, I went to the bar, and Jenny told me you’d left for Sydney . . .” I raise my arms out before letting them fall back to my sides. “You’d gone, there was a whole new world out there waiting for you, a new life for you to live. New people to meet. I was tied to Palmers Bay and not about to ask you to try the long-distance thing while I sorted my own shit out. I thought a clean break was for the best. You needed to focus on your studies. I needed to work and provide for the baby I had on the way.”
We’re both silent. My mouth’s dry from all the shouting, so I move around the bar and pull us each a bottle of water from one of the fridges.
“Thanks,” she says, retrieving the bottle from the bar top before staring out the rain-lashed windows at the front of the building.
I take the opportunity to study her. She was always curvy, but her hips, arse, and tits are fuller now. Flashbacks of the night we finally got naked hit, and I remember how soft her creamy skin felt, the contrast of her red hair against it striking.
I played this scenario out in my head so many times in the early days, somehow running into Blue and finally having the chance to explain what the fuck happened. Then I just gave up. Thought I’d never see her again. Now, after all these years, she’s right here in front of me, and despite the fact we’re arguing, it feels so fucking good to see her.
I don’t really use Facebook, but I must admit, I did look her up back in the early days when it first started, but her account was locked up tight, and I didn’t find much out I didn’t already know. It had her hometown set at Palmers Bay, but I knew she wasn’t living there. If she’d moved back to town since I’d left, one of my brothers would’ve let me know. They all knew how I felt about Scarlett O’Brien, the one that got away.
“So, we gonna argue back and forth about this, or we gonna be constructive, work together, and turn this place intotheplace to be seen on the peninsula?” she finally asks.
I move around to her side of the bar. Arms still folded across her chest, I watch as her eyes move from the pouring rain to meet mine.
