Page 39 of Remember When We
The cross tattooed on his neck pulsed as he tensed. I’d seen it last night and thought it held meaning. Now it just made him look more hardened.
Hard and clearly angry, angry with me. I was angry too, with myself and with him. More at him so I wasn’t about to allow him to come here and push me around after eight years. He wouldn’t tell me what to do or make any form of demands after all that time.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, breaking the silence.
I lifted my shoulders into a shrug. “Didn’t think you wanted to know.”
His nostrils flared and his eyes blazed. “Lyssa, you didn’t think I’d want to know I have a son? What kind of a fucked up way of thinking is that? Seriously?” He threw back.
“I’m sorry Gio, maybe I’m to blame for misunderstanding again. Don’t forget my immature mind, I was little more than a child when I had him so I might have taken the word misunderstood to mean exactly that. In school, they taught me the Oxford definition of the word:to incorrectly understand or misinterpret.” At least I was using my English studies for something. “Maybe they should have used some other kind of dictionary, I don’t know why they didn’t. But that’s not my problem. You told me I misunderstood our relationship, and I basically had my fucking head in the clouds. It follows that signaled the end. Null and final regardless of consequences.”
His face …
His face was a mixture of fury and deep annoyance. The expression was similar to how he looked last night when Tony had pissed him off. I felt strongly that if I were a guy, he would have hit me by now.
Instead, he stepped closer and closer, and fuck I stood my ground. This wasn’t like the other day with Frankie. That was about me. I could cower like a little idiot when it came to me, but shit got real when it came to my son.
“Please for fuck’s sake, don’t throw that fucking bull shit my way. I have a son in this world, you knew about it and didn’t tell me. There is no excuse for that. None. You people knew where I was. You knew I would have gone to Chicago. Someone could have told me. Someone could have found me and told me. There was nothing I said to you that is an acceptable reason to keep such a secret from me. I’ve known you guys for over twenty years, and no one thought they could tell me I had a son.”
I didn’t know who he thought he was fooling. It wasn’t me though. Not me, and I didn’t care who he was, or what he was. He could hit me if he wanted to when he heard my answer to that.
“You selfish bastard!”
‘I’m selfish? Really? Lyssa you knew I was that boy’s father. It wasn’t like there was some confusion and you weren’t sure.”
That was it, all I could take. I snapped, that hand of mine raised up just like it did eight years ago and landed a slap straight across his cheek.
He looked at me stunned.
“That is the last time you say something like that to me. There was no need for confusion. I wasn’t confused. You insist on implying I was screwing around and I wasn’t. I was a virgin when we got together, and I was just with you. Unlike you, I thought we had a relationship. Me not telling you, that you had a son wasn’t about you. Gio, you made it very clear to me that you wanted nothing to do with me. You made it clear, and you left.” My voice started to shake and I had to will myself not to cry. I didn’t want to cry anymore. I didn’t want to cry in front of him, but that bravado was failing me. All because I was thinking of how he left. “You left and I had to push everything aside. No one told you to leave. You chose it on your own. You chose it and I had to deal. I had to become a mom and deal with what life threw me. You left and you never looked back until now. You never came back to check on the people you’ve supposedly known for over twenty years.”
There it was, the truth in all of its glory. No opinion there, all facts and he couldn’t refute it, because it was all true.
“Lyssa someone could … have found me. This feels like punishment I didn’t deserve. You’re telling me all this stuff and I know I left, but I had my reasons. My point is you knew how to find me and didn’t. I had my reasons for leaving and staying away. You say you suffered, but you could have found me to relieve some of that. Not just shut me out. Now I come back and I see all this and something feels off to me.” He narrowed his gaze at me. “You’re working the bar. You’re working in Carla’s salon too and it looks like you live with your father.”
Analyzing. He was analyzing and it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out that one: I worked like a broke person, two: I worked like a broke person in a lot of debt, and three: the amount of money I was earning should have covered the run of the mill kind of debt. Not my crazy monthly debts of just over seven grand per month. That kind of debt was crazy money. More than enough for the well above average person to have a really good life.
He was a mafia guy, they knew what large sums of money going in and out like that meant. He’d figure it out. He was smart. I just didn’t know what he’d do if he figured it out. In my rage it looked like he was verging on to my biggest fear here and that was thinking he could take Matthew away from me.
“What are you implying? What are you saying now?” I stood a little taller.
“I’m saying it doesn’t look like you’re doing so good.”
My God, he was trying to find an excuse. Something to hold against me. “Don’t even think for one second that you can take him from me.”
Something wicked flashed in his eyes. “Why not?”
My heart … it couldn’t take it, it stopped beating. He stepped closer and I swallowed hard against the lump in my throat.
“Why shouldn’t I Lyssa?” he asked and I just crumbled.
All of my courage just left me on hearing that, and I couldn’t believe he would be so cruel. I gasped and a tear rolled down my cheek. “You, selfish bastard. You want to come here after all these years and take the last good thing away from me.”
I hit him in his chest, but it was like hitting a wall. It did nothing. Didn’t move him or faze him. He just stood there towering over me with his height.
Standing there glaring.
“You never loved me.” I was so stupid. So very foolish. I’d taken the phrase young and dumb to the next level. I had fallen for a man who just wanted to use me; my brother’s best friend. Now this. “You never cared about me. I was just a thing. You never actually wanted me.”
