Page 66 of Memories of Us

“You blacked out?”

“No, I froze because instead of seeing what was going on in front of me, I had a whole scene replaying in my mind of what happened that night. I remember. Everything.”

My hand trembled as I tried to open my Coke. Giving up, I leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes. “Tell me what you remember.”

“I remember walking in to you and your dad screaming at each other and Bradley holding him back. What’s crazy is I can almost feel the rage I felt then at seeing your bleeding lip, your eyes red and swollen from crying. I grabbed you, pulled you into your room, and packed your bags. I threw whatever I could find into a small duffel you had, and we left.”

“You told me you'd take care of me,” I whispered over the roaring engines.

“You know what else I remember feeling?”

“What?” I choked out.

“Fucking happy.”

“You were high, Brenton. Of course you were happy.”

“It had nothing to do with drugs, Rebeka. Hey, look at me.” I tucked a lock of hair behind my ear, took a deep breath in for strength, and opened my eyes. “You were pregnant.”

Air stopped filling my lungs and my heart slammed against my chest as I stared wide-eyed into his.

“That's what you texted me. You told me you were pregnant, and that's why I came to you. Last night you said you never imagined I would come to you after you sent that text. Was I that much of an asshole? Did you have that little faith in me that you thought I wouldn't give a shit?”

Fuck it.

We were doing this now or never. It wasn't like I could walk out, which was probably part of his genius plan all along. Get me in this floating tin can with zero exits a sane person would take at this altitude.

I twirled the Coke can between my hands. “Do you have anything stronger?” Brenton nodded and unbuckled his seat belt. “Bring the bottle.”

“It's an hour flight.”

“Then you might want to bring two.”

“So bossy,” he grumbled, but a corner of his full lips pulled up in an almost smirk.

After he returned with two travel-size whiskey bottles, I cracked one open and tipped it back. When the burning down my throat subsided, I leaned back in the seat and shrugged.

“Like I said last night, I was seventeen. I was scared, and we never had the whole ‘we're doing this forever’ talk. Hell, you never even said you loved me. For all I knew at the time, I was just a fun distraction when you were at the ranch.”

“That doesn't sound right,” he said with enough anger behind it that I looked up through my lashes. “I might not remember everything, but you knew you were more than a distraction. What we had was more than sex.”

Again I sighed and leaned against the window. I took another swig from the bottle and grimaced at the bold flavor. “Okay, yeah, that was an asshole thing of me to say. I knew I was more than that, but still, I was seventeen and pregnant with my father’s boss’s grandson's baby, who happened to be way older. Oh, and to top it off, no one had a damn clue we were even together.”

“How did your dad even find out? Did you tell him?”

“Hell no. I went to someone, someone I thought I could trust.”

“Who?”

“Mrs. Hathway. She'd been like a mother to me all those years, and I thought she would give me advice, let me cry on her shoulder. But it didn't turn out that way.”

“I'll deal with her when I get back,” he said with an undercurrent of rage in his tone. “I was happy about the baby. Shocked, but happy.”

I didn't hold back my smile. “Yeah you were. The wreck happened about five minutes after we left the ranch. Something darted out into the road. You swerved and then overcorrected us right into a deep drop-off. But in those five minutes, you had our whole lives planned out. You talked so fast, got me excited about our future. You made me believe it.” With the back of my hand, I wiped away a rogue tear. “You made me believe in a future with you.”

All the color drained from his face. “Then I took it away.”

Unable to get another word out without turning into a bumbling mess, I nodded and looked out the window to the white fluffy clouds.

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