Her Perfect Gift: A Christmas Romance Page 17

  “You want money?” Yep, my worst fears have been confirmed. She hasn’t asked a damn thing about me. Even if she has read about me in the news, she hasn’t asked anything about me at all. I don’t feel like I should be here.

  “Just a bit, to pay some people off, maybe get enough stuff to get me through the next few weeks. Like I said, I’m not clean yet. But I can be if you need me to be your mother. I can make it work.”

  Trying not to fall apart I grab out my wallet and pull out everything inside of it. “I don’t know how much is here, but you can have it. I have to… I need to get out of here …”

  As I back away towards the door, she hungrily grabs at the cash, not even bothering to look at me go. She doesn’t ask for a contact number or anything and I’m pretty sure that’s because she has what she wants from me. I am nothing to her and now I will fade into the background of her life all over again.

  I need to get out of here, I need to block this out, this is hell.

  Chapter Thirty

  Darcy

  January 22nd

  I never thought that I would be back here again, this definitely wasn’t in the plans. But as I stand outside of my parent’s home with my fist up, ready to knock, I know that I don’t have any choice. This is the only place for me and all I can do is grovel, tell my mother that she was right, and start over. Pick myself back up again.

  It will be fine, I tell myself, desperately trying to convince my brain that I’m right. This is my family.

  The family love is all that will pull us through here. I need it more than ever before, it’s the only choice that we have. The unconditional kind of love that can overcome anything, no matter how painful. But because I’m not one hundred percent convinced that I have it unconditionally, I am knocking rather than bursting in using my key. Plus, I’m a little scared of my mother changing the locks and me finding out that I’m not welcome.

  Knock, knock. My hand shakes as I finally make that move. Maybe even my whole body. Knock, knock.

  Everything inside of me stiffens as the door swings open, I half prepare myself for a battle, but when I find my father’s warm eyes looking back at me, I release all of that. He might follow my mother in the way that he wants what is best for me, but he has been a rock since I was away, someone I can talk to which has brought us much closer. I know that out of everyone, he will help me now in my hour of need. And this really is that.

  “Darcy!” he gasps in shock as his eyes explore my face questioningly, searching me. “You’re back?”

  I nod, glad that he doesn’t seem to need to ask if everything has fallen apart because it must be written all over me. I don’t exactly what to go into detail now. I just need some time and space to get my head back in order.

  “Well, come in.” He ushers me inside. “And let me get your suitcase. Take a seat, I will make some tea.”

  I don’t know where my mother is, nor do I need to. Instead, I happily go with my father to the kitchen and I sit at the breakfast bar while he puts the kettle on to warm me up with a hot drink. Inhaling the all too familiar scent of home calms down everything inside of me that has been freaked out. I need familiarity, I need home.

  Yep, this is clearly where I need to be, this is so much better than LA. I can already feel the Darcy McNeill that I have always been, inhabiting my body once more. She must have left me, and I didn’t even realize it, which makes me so glad to have her back again. I can be me at last. I have missed me.

  “Thank you, Dad.” I take the mug of tea and sip it immediately, loving the way that it makes me feel. “I needed this. It was a long journey, and well… it’s been a bit of a long day as well. A long week even.”

  “It doesn’t look like you want to talk about it right now,” he says observantly. “But when you are ready, I’m here for you. Whatever went on… well, it can’t be the end of the world, can it, because you are here.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” I smile thinly. “I’m still standing, so that’s something to be glad about.”

  We fall into a comfortable silence and continue to sip our drinks. The silence is filled with love and warmth which I really need, but it also brings waves of exhaustion over me. Waves that are hard to contain. Much as I want to stay here and stick with my father for a little while longer, I desperately need to sleep.

  “I think that I might go up to bed, if you don’t mind.” I scrape back my stool as I rise to my feet. “Get some rest and figure out what the hell I’m going to do tomorrow. I need to figure my life out…”

  Dad parts his lips, just about to say something else, but as the words fall apart on his tongue before they leave his mouth, the color drains from his face. I think I know what’s happened before I even turn around.

  “You are back,” Mom’s voice rings out from behind me, flooding the whole house. “What are you doing back now? After you ran off and haven’t bothered to be in touch for all this time? I guess I was right, huh?”

  I force myself to turn around and look at her, because a small part of me wants to torture myself by adding her angry facial expression in to this already horrible moment. “Hi, Mom, yes I’m back but not for long…”

  “He cheated on you, am I right?” she continues, talking over me and completely ignoring my words. “With that girl that he has been filming a movie with. Just as I told you he would because that’s the sort of man that he is. And now you are heart broken and he has moved on to the next. Just as I told you he would. If only you could be bothered to listen to me, you would have saved yourself all of this humiliation and shame.”

  “Mom, I don’t want to argue about this,” I plead, too tired and emotional to have her feelings in the mix. “Can I just go to bed tonight and then we will talk about this in the morning? I need some rest. I will listen to anything that you have to say then. Even if it is just to say, ‘I told you so’ over and over again.”

  As soon as those words leave my mouth, I know that they were a mistake to say. My mother’s face glowers and her whole expression turns a blackened shade of rage. I take an automatic step backwards to try and escape the volcanic eruption that I just know will spill all over me, but I can’t avoid it. I don’t stand a chance.

  “I am telling you that I told you so, because I did,” she snaps, venom lacing her tongue. “Because that boy is an idiot and was never going to treat you right. I wanted to tell you what was best for you, but you ran away like a teenager with a pathetic little crush, acting nothing like the adult you are supposed to be, and now look at you.” She runs her eyes up and down me, clearly disgusted by what she sees which immediately makes me shrink in on myself. I want to hide away from the world. “You have put yourself out there in the public eye, make yourself a figure of ridicule, and all for nothing. Now, you will never have a business of your own because you have made yourself a joke. You look like a pathetic groupie who thought that she could get lucky.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” I whisper at the same moment my father snaps at her for being cruel to me. But I already know that it won’t make any difference. She has been vindicated, and I have been proven wrong. She is going to swim in this for a very long time to come. There is no escaping the pain coming my way.

  Coming back home wasn’t a good idea. I don’t fit in here just like I don’t in LA. God, do I have anywhere in the world that I can make my own? It’s starting to feel like I will always be on the outside.

  “What exactly do you think will happen now?” Just as I suspected, Mom keeps berating me. “Huh? Have you come back with a plan, Darcy? Because you can’t just mope around and do nothing anymore.”

  “I’m not going to do nothing,” I mumble pathetically. “I just need to sleep before I can plan.”

  “And who the hell says that you are still welcome here?” Mom’s hands fling on to her hips as she shows me that she means business now. “You can’t just come back like that, it isn’t right.”

  I’m a pressure cooker, each word of hers filling me up more until I can’t
take it anymore. There isn’t any room left inside of me. I’m on the edge of things, on the tip of the knife, and I can’t hold it in. I just need her to understand that this isn’t the mess she assumes, there is so much more to it, and now more than ever I really need her to push all of her feelings about my behavior to one side to just be my mother for a change.

  “Mom, I’m pregnant,” I blurt out while throwing my hands in to the air in frustration. “I’m having a baby, and everything is a mess, so please… all I want to do is sleep. I can’t deal with any of this.”

  “A baby?” My mom gasps in horror as I watch all of the color drain from my father again. That poor man is really struggling right now. “You are having a child, with him? How stupid can you be?” Oh, so I guess my want for some sympathy right now isn’t going to lead me anywhere. “How idiotic are you? You do know about birth control, don’t you? Protection from babies and diseases. A man like that… who knows what he has.” She visibly shudders. “No, I’m sorry I can’t have this, Darcy. I can not have you in my house with God knows what and that idiot’s baby inside of you. You are an adult now and you need to get the hell out.”

  “You’re kicking me out?” Despite everything I am still surprised by this. “Really? Now? When I need you more than ever? This isn’t just a baby, Mom, this is your grandchild…”

  “No family member of mine is conceived out of wed lock.”

  “Are you joking? Mom, please, just let me stay tonight and then I will get out of your hair…”

  “No.” She folds her arms across her chest, completely ignoring my father’s pleas for her to be a bit more reasonable. “You need to go, Darcy. I can’t have this. You think that you are the only person with problems, that this only affects you, but you’re wrong. This gets to me as well, and it kills me. You are humiliating me every single day. I just need you gone. If you are enough of an adult to let this happen, then you can stand on your own two feet and fix it, because my support for you is done.”

  I don’t know if I have ever had her support really. Certainly not when I do something that isn’t what she has commanded of me, but this is the lowest that she has ever sank. This is the first time that I have ever felt her turn her back on me for good. And it hurts. God damn does it hurt more than I knew it could.

  But I can’t fight it. I don’t have the strength to battle with this anymore, I am done. I just want to sleep. I’m simply lucky that I have one person here who I know that I can trust to be there for me even when everyone else in the whole world has turned their back on me. My best friend, Ivy, who doesn’t even know that I’m back yet. The one who told me to fight for love, to make it work, but even though it didn’t work out, she won’t judge me like my mother does. She will help me through this shitty time, until my life is back on track… if that’s possible.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Seth

  January 22nd

  Oh my God, heading to a bar as soon as I left my mother to try and block out the terrible things that happened with her, was a mistake. I don’t remember much after the fifth drink, but I can tell from the pounding headache and the intense sickness swirling through my system, that I stayed out late and drank far too much. I’m pretty sure I even tumbled to the ground at some point in my sorry ass state, because I’m covered in scrapes.

  “What the fuck?” I murmur as I try to block out the pain. “Why am I such an idiot?”

  The thing is I still feel all emotional and shitty after meeting my mother and learning that even now, even after all of these years she only wanted money from me. If I wasn’t the movie star that I have made myself, she wouldn’t have bothered to talk to me ever again. That’s horrible, isn’t it? I am not worth anything but cash. I can’t believe it. I mean, I didn’t get the hippy chick that my father fell in love with, she’s something else entirely.

  “Darcy?” I didn’t get a chance to speak to her last night. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind, but now I need to tell her everything. I need to get the opinion of someone who really knows me. “Darcy, where are you?”

  I pat the bed next to me but the area where she should be sleeping is cold and empty. If only I could remember coming home last night, then I would know if she was beside me then. I shouldn’t drink anymore. I don’t know why I have fallen so hard into the pit of booze recently. It isn’t good for me at all.

  “Darcy?” I call a little louder. “Darcy, where are you? Are you downstairs?”

  I need to push myself up from the bed, clutching on to my stomach to try and stop myself from puking. I can just imagine her lying on the couch because I was too much for her last night. I’d rather that than her not be here at all. I need her more than ever before. But as I stagger down the stairs, there is too much silence for my liking. I can’t hear anything, not even the sound of breathing which has me panicked.

  “Darcy!” I yell loudly. “Darcy, where are you? Why aren’t you here? I need to talk to you…”

  But something suddenly strikes me hard. If I wasn’t such a mess, then I probably would have picked this up right away. The apartment is a lot emptier than it was before, there are lots of things missing, things that don’t belong to me. Darcy’s things aren’t here anymore. She seems to be gone… gone? I don’t understand. She has gone, but why. Why the hell would she not be here anymore? Why would she just up and go?

  She hasn’t been happy; I tell myself with a lump in my throat. She didn’t like LA at all.

  I have known that, of course I have, and then there was the Winter drama which I think that I might have lost sight of, in the midst of dealing with my mother. Oh God, now that I’m really thinking about it, I totally forgot about it all day. As soon as I saw that message from my mother, her quote, everything else just flew out of the window. I pushed the photos of me and Winter out the window, I didn’t even think about it, nor did I consider how it might have affected Darcy. I think that she should trust me because I know that I didn’t do anything wrong, but I haven’t really given her anything to work with, have I? I haven’t made sure that she knows there isn’t anything between me and Winter. I selfishly got obsessed with my mother who doesn’t give a shit about me.

  But would she really do something as dramatic as just leave? Without even talking to me about it? As I run about the house it really seems like it, she is gone, which leaves me wondering if there is something else. There must be more underneath the surface, mustn’t there? It’s all that makes sense.

  I eventually find my cell phone, which of course has no battery, and I stick it on charge. While it powers up the battery enough for me to switch it on, I hop impatiently from foot to foot, unable to stand it.

  “Finally,” I mutter with irritation. “What the hell is that about? Is my phone trying to kill me here?”

  I rapidly find her number in my contacts and hit dial. As I wait for the ringing to begin, I’m even more on edge than ever before. I can hardly keep still. An explosion comes from me, rage bubbles as I get her voice mail. What the hell is she doing? She can’t just run off on me and not speak to me then turn her phone off.

  “Darcy!” I burst as soon as the bleep of voice mail. “Darcy, where are you? What’s going on here? Why have I just woken up alone to find that you have gone, I don’t understand it. No note, no information, nothing. Is this some kind of permanent thing or will you be back? I thought…” My emotion catches in my throat. “I thought that we were in love, I thought that we were enjoying being together. I know that it hasn’t all been smooth sailing, but I assumed that we were strong enough to work through anything together. Please, Darcy… I don’t know what else to say, but please call me. Please, whatever is going on, let’s just talk about it. Please.”

  I hang up without saying anything else, even though I have so much more to let out because I don’t want to freak the fuck out and put her off calling me ever again. I need to know what is going on here.

  “Fuck,” I hiss to myself. “What the fuck is this? Why is everything falling apart?�
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  First off, Winter and that complication. Her changing our friendship that was supposed to be amazing, ruining it with feelings that she isn’t supposed to have. My mother with her nightmare, then this… although losing Darcy is the thing that hurt the most. She was my constant, the one person that I wanted to keep in my life forever. With her gone, I feel a bit like I am floating, higher than air, losing my footing…

  Ring, ring…

  I grab my cell phone as soon as it rings, not giving it a moment to keep on going because I can only assume that it’s Darcy getting back to me, finally giving me the answers that I so desperately need.

  “Hello?” But it isn’t Darcy’s voice to greet me. It’s Sierra’s. “Seth, why aren’t you on set?”

  “Huh?” Fuck, of course I am supposed to be filming. “Oh, right sure, I’m on the way.”

  “I have just been given shit from the director, Seth. You know that the budget is much tighter than movies that you are used to working with. So, time and location are restricted as well. Every minute counts. They can’t fuck around with other things because you have decided for some reason not to show up. You need to get here as soon as possible.”

  I find some sweatpants tossed in the bottom of my wardrobe and grab them. It doesn’t matter what I wear to the studio, they will change me as soon as I arrive anyway. “I’m on the way now.”

  “They are doing a scene without you for the moment, which the director isn’t too happy about, but you really do need to arrive soon. I don’t want any more harassment.”

  “Sure, sure.” I fall on to the bed, knowing that gives me a little while. “I’m on the way.”