Her Perfect Gift: A Christmas Romance Page 16

  “Er…” Okay, so in a way I do get this. He hasn’t ever had his mother in his life and I’m sure that this must be a massive shock to him, but I don’t see how we have gone all the way from my feelings about him and Winter to this. Right now, I am still trying to wrap my head around the fact that he has been lying to me about spending time with her and there really seems to be something going on between them, which of course crushes me because she is way more perfect for him than I could ever be. She’s stunning, I can’t imagine her ever getting hate online, she would be incredible on his arm, and she loves LA as well. It clearly suits her, it is the life that she wants, that she has chosen… unlike me. I don’t want to be here anymore.

  “So, I have to go and meet with this Jasmine, get the full details. Then I am going to see who my mother is. That must be what she wants, don’t you think? She is trying to reconnect with me by letting me make the first move. She is trying to say to me that she wants to know me, but it’s really up to me what I do.”

  “By speaking to the media?” I don’t want to burst his bubble, but he seems to have added two and two together and come up with some obscure number. “What did she even say about you to this Jasmine?”

  “Oh, it was about me being like my dad, so I guess it wasn’t the best, but that has to be a way to get my attention.”

  Oh God, he really is just seeing what he wants to see here. Despite everything that he has done to me, I can’t help but feel sorry for the little boy deep inside of him who just wants his mommy. It doesn’t matter what she has done to him, he wants to keep giving her endless chances because they share DNA. I can’t stop this; he is on a roll. All that I can do right now is push my feelings to the side and deal with this later on. Help him.

  “Okay, well I will come with you,” I say determinedly. “I will support you. Whatever you need.”

  An ice cold sensation washes over me while I watch his face contort with stress. Immediately I can tell that I have said the wrong thing which makes me feel so fucking stupid. I have pushed all of my sadness away, I haven’t even mentioned how much I am dying inside, and he doesn’t even want me.

  “I think that this might be something I should do alone. Just because I don’t know what I will find.”

  “I don’t make you happy, do I? You pretend for my sake, but I know the truth.” His words from the middle of the night flood my mind in the worst way possible. “It doesn’t matter how much we love one another, being here isn’t making your life as complete as it should be.” Tears haunt me, I have to swallow back hard so I don’t let them out. “I always feel like you might be on the verge of leaving.” He’s worried about pushing me away but now he doesn’t want me around. “Winter kept saying tonight that she doesn’t think I am happy either. I think I am, but what if she’s right?” He isn’t happy, I can see it in his eyes. The idea of meeting his mother has thrilled him far more than being with me ever could. I can’t keep acting like I don’t hate it either. Not now.

  “Okay.” I nod and act like this is all good. “You do that. Good luck with it all. I will just…”

  I wave my hand dismissively and give him a bit of a look. I just want him to see me, just for a split second. I want him to know that I am suffering, that all of this doesn’t push anything to the side for me, but of course he simply looks right through me. His mind is on something else entirely. I might as well not be here.

  “Right.” He grabs his keys and smiles thinly at me. “Well, I am off. See you later.”

  He rushes towards the front door without looking back, without kissing me or even hugging me, without giving me any reassurance that my female intuition and subsequent jealousy about Winter was all for nothing… instead he goes while I remain stewing in it, wondering what is left for me now. Nothing it seems.

  “I might as well not be here,” I mutter while clinging on to my belly. “I should go.”

  That thought keeps circling around through me as I wander around the very beautiful LA apartment that I have tried to fit in to, but haven’t yet succeeded in. It hasn’t ever felt like mine, however much Seth wanted it to. None of this has been good for me. I haven’t blossomed into the person that I was always meant to become, I haven’t gotten my business off the ground, or grown because I am out of my mother’s watchful eye. I am still stuck.

  “This isn’t right.” The ears start falling hard down my face as I tell myself the truth. “I am nothing here. Just the sad girlfriend waiting at home for her man to finish work with a beautiful woman who adores him.”

  This isn’t the magical happily ever after, this isn’t the wonderful end to the story that I want, this isn’t anything. This is a life that I don’t want and that I don’t need to hold on to anymore.

  Without even thinking about it any longer, I grab my cell phone and I start searching for flights. I really might as well not be here any longer, I need to go back home to rethink things, to get myself in the right frame of mind because LA is toxic for me and I can’t get anything done properly here. It doesn’t work for me.

  We tried. This isn’t like six years ago where we shared one kiss and we were left wondering ‘what if?’ afterwards. We know now. We tried and it didn’t work out. Yes, it’s a massive shame and it is going to be hard for me, but I have some answers now. I won’t be constantly day dreaming about what could have been. I guess that even if you are the right people for one another, if the timing is wrong, that affects everything. It can’t happen, can it? The outside factors affect things and if they are wrong then they are wrong.

  I am a bit numb as I book the ticket. I don’t even really allow myself to think about anything. I just act, knowing that it’s the right thing to do. I can’t be miserable when I have such life changing decisions in front of me. I can’t allow unhappiness to taint that. I don’t know if this is me leaving forever, I’m almost positive that it is, I would say ninety nine percent sure that I am done with him, but I am willing to give myself the time and space to think. To make the right decision for all of us. For me and my future, for Seth and his career, and for this unborn child as well. The baby deserves better than this.

  It sucks. It really does suck because I wanted this so much, but even once I have hit the book button, a weight lifts off my shoulders. I am already a little bit lighter. Then as I move about the apartment, gathering up my few belongings to pack them in to my suitcase, I know that I need this. Home doesn’t have a lot for me either, aside from my disappointed family and my friends, but it has to be better than this. It has to be…

  * * *

  I should have written a note. That thought doesn’t hit me until I am standing in the airport waiting for my flight to come. I should have left a letter for Seth to let him know why I can’t do LA anymore. I was basically in a daze as I called a cab and I exited his house, but now I realize that was a mistake. Whatever Seth has done to me, we have been in one another’s lives too long for me to just ghost him like that. We had our amazing friendship, then a great love story where he treated me well, it isn’t his fault that it didn’t work out…

  Well, aside from all of the Winter drama, but I am trying not to think about that because this isn’t the time or place for me to fall apart. Right now, I am simply doing what I can to hold it together. Not cry and wail on the floor because I don’t want to be looked at like a freak. Nor do I want someone photographing the poor sap who thought that she could have Seth Bishop over Winter Basel. That will be a wonderful laughable story for them.

  I pull my cell phone out of my pocket and stare at the screen, wondering if putting in a call to him would work. Sure, I don’t really want to drop this bomb on him in the middle of one of the biggest days of his life, I also don’t want him to beg me to stay when my mind is already made up, but I can’t just go, can I?

  No. I stuff my cell phone away, changing my mind just as quickly as I make it. If I have the emotional strength, I will call him when I get home instead. Then he may be done with his mother, or the woman that I’m
sure must be pretending to be his mother to get his attention because this all seems far too strange, too Hollywood, for me, and he won’t be able to change my mind. I can explain it all calmly then. Hey, maybe I will even tell him about the pregnancy. I don’t know, that is a subject that I will need to handle carefully.

  Thankfully, just as I am about to get in to full on panic mode, the gate for my flight comes up on the screen and gives me something else to do other than stand around panicking. I don’t need to get myself all worked up right now. Instead I need to get away from the place that has only brought me unhappiness. Every step that takes me towards my plane is nice, it’s relieving. It would be better if Seth was with me and we didn’t have all of this Winter drama to cope with, but I can’t have that. He is here now, sucked in by Hollywood, and I can’t be.

  This is the end.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Seth

  January 21st

  “You sure this is the right place?” I ask Jasmine anxiously. “This is where you met her?”

  “I have met people in worse places than a motel parking lot, believe me.” She laughs mirthlessly, which has me wondering about what it must be like to be a journalist. I have always viewed them as vultures who relish in the idea of taking more successful people than them down, but now I’m not so sure. Seeing it through Jasmine’s eyes I kinda realize that there is a lot more to it than that. It isn’t very easy at all. “But yes, this is where I met Cressida the first time around and this is where she said that she would meet me again.”

  “For a follow up.” I suck in a deep breath of nervous air. “Not to meet her son.”

  “I do think that you might be right though,” Jasmine agrees, sounding much more on board with my line of thinking than Darcy was. “That she spoke to me to get your attention. I mean, I didn’t know that she wasn’t in your life the whole time or I might have gone with that angle. It does seem really strange…”

  “You did promise that you won’t publish that story,” I remind Jasmine. She did, but I don’t know how much I believe her. I guess time will only tell if she intends to follow through with that. “So, where is she?”

  “You wait here.” Jasmine presses her hand to my chest. “I will speak to her first. Once she sees me from her room window, she will come out and speak to me. Then we can bring you into the picture.”

  I do as she commands even though I don’t know if this is the right move, and I wait in the shadows for her to make her appearance. Her first in my whole life, that I can remember anyway. While I pause, I conjure up the image that my father in his love-struck manner has created of her for me. This free loving hippy chick with long flowing blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes who always had a smile on her face and could make anyone laugh. He has always told me that she lit up every damn room that she went in to, and it was impossible not to fall for her. But that her free spirit and flower child attitude made it impossible for her to stay in one place at a time. She was a butterfly who can’t have her wings clipped. I have always thought of her as this ray of sunshine who would make me forgive her in a heartbeat without me needing to try.

  Jasmine glances behind her giving me a little look to warn me. She’s coming. I stiffen, fear bolts through me as I roll my shoulders up near my ears. It’s about to happen. Twenty eight years has brought me to this point…

  What the fuck? This isn’t right, it can’t be. As soon as I see the person joining Jasmine’s side, I fall apart inside because this isn’t the woman that my father described at all. This woman looks much older than I imagined, with mousy brown straggly hair that looks drug abused and not cared for. There is no smile on her gaunt face and her body is too thin for her to light up any room… this is someone else. Someone who I actually know. Or not know but I have seen before because she approached me at the New Year’s Eve party.

  “I only want a moment,” she said to me, I remember it so clearly now. “This won’t take long. I just want to know about you. All of you. Your life, your childhood, what you are working on now, how you followed in your father’s footsteps… It isn’t for anything. I just want to talk to you that’s all.”

  Oh God, I was so dismissive of her and now I know why she wanted to talk to me. I feel kind awful for the things that I barked at her when clearly, she was just trying to reach out to me, to talk to me. She went about it the wrong way, just like she has done here, but still… she obviously doesn’t know what to do.

  “Talk to someone else. There are plenty of people here that you can harass before you get kicked out, so why not do that? I am sure that there will be someone who wants to talk to you. Someone desperate for the attention.”

  My words make me flinch; I feel terrible. All I want to do is step closer to her and find the words to make it right, but, how can I? This is a fucking mess. One that I suppose she created…

  “Seth!” Finally, Jasmine calls out to me, grabbing my attention back to the present. “Come here.”

  It’s time. My mother is looking at me now with the same mix of recognition and fear for dealing with a stranger as well, which brings me closer to her. She isn’t the woman that I thought she was, and she isn’t who my father described either. I guess that it must be time for me to find out who she really is.

  I kinda wish that I had Darcy with me. I don’t know why I turned down her kind offer to be honest, it just seemed like the right thing to do at the time. But I suppose this is something that I must do alone, however much it kills me. I need to be by myself as I discover who this woman has become since she ran out on me.

  “Hi,” she whispers with a strained smile on her face. “It’s you.”

  “Yeah.” I nod cautiously. “And I suppose it’s you as well.”

  Jasmine waits for a beat of silence before she jumps in. “Well, I guess I have done my part. It’s up to you guys now if you want to go inside and have a talk or whatever. A happy family reunion…”

  Once Jasmine moves away from the pair of us while giving me a reassuring look, but also flooding me with nerves as she does. There will definitely be a story written about this, I just know it, but to be honest I might be beyond caring. I’m too much in the midst of confusion about this situation right now.

  “Shall we go inside?” I feel like I need to be the one to take the first step here. “Talk some more?”

  I don’t know what I’m expecting from a motel room, but as we go inside it’s the stink which hits me first. It’s smoky with a horrible hint of something that I don’t even want to acknowledge. It certainly isn’t a smell that I know personally, but it doesn’t take a genius to work it out. It might explain why my mother looks like she does and isn’t anything like the woman my father told me to expect.

  “Take a seat,” my mother declares while waving her hand dismissively. “If you can find a place.”

  I don’t bother. Instead, I look at her with confusion. “Mom, what the hell is going on here? What happened? I mean, I am looking to you now for answers, I need to know why we’re all of a sudden here.”

  As I shrug hard, I shiver thinking about the word ‘Mom’. Even saying that is weird. Never mind the rest.

  “I owe you an explanation.” She lights up what I hope is just a cigarette, but it does smell odd. “That’s why I have been trying to communicate with you. I didn’t do it right, but we’re here anyway. You… you probably want to know why I left. Or maybe you understand. You did grow up with your father after all. You know what his love is like. He’s overwhelming, isn’t he? He’s too much. Especially when you are a seventeen year old free spirit who didn’t expect a hook up with a rock star to turn into a baby and all that seriousness… sorry. I don’t mean to sound like I didn’t want you. It isn’t that, it was just a bit much.”

  “Right… I see.” This is making me feel like shit. Her words are destroying me from the inside out.

  “So, when my group of friends were leaving town, just after you were born, I went with them. It just felt like the right thing to do.
I needed space, I had to breathe, I wanted to continue living my life.”

  “Your life.” I sound all robotic. This reunion isn’t what I need it to be. I didn’t have any expectations coming in here, but it definitely wouldn’t ever be this. “Of course you did. Why wouldn’t you?”

  “Don’t be all judgmental, Seth, I was only seventeen. I didn’t know any better… nor did I know that the people I left town with were going to get me into heavier drugs. You know, the real hard stuff.” She laughs raspily. “I didn’t know that it was going to steal all those years of my life. Take away so much time so I wouldn’t ever get to see you growing up or any of that stuff. I didn’t know that It would be three decades later…”

  “Twenty eight years,” I snap. “I am twenty eight years old. If you aren’t quite sure.”

  “I know, I’m just saying…” She shakes her head, deciding to dismiss my issues. “Anyway, I’m more clear headed now. Not clean, obviously.” She waves the cigarette at me, confirming my worst suspicions. “But on less stuff. So, now it seems like a good time to see you again. Especially now that you are a big shot.” She tries to smile but even that appears to hurt her face. “With all the money in the world, I bet. In Hollywood.”

  Oh God, it’s starting to sound like she just came to look for me because I have money now. I’m too scared to even ask because I really don’t want to know what the answer is. I’m scared that it will be bad.

  “So, you been looking after your father, I bet?” She winks and blows a plume of smoke too near to my face for my liking. “Financially I mean. I get that he probably deserves more than me because he has been around more, but I can be around too. Especially if I pay off my drug debts, you know? I have a lot of guys after me who want to hurt me because I can’t afford to pay them back. That’s why I’m laying low and I thought that while I am here, I could reconnect with my son and ask him this favor. You know, make sure I’m around for longer.”