Chapter four

By the time Maggie got home it was very late, she was surprised to see her brother waiting up for her.

“Link, you scared the crap out of me.” Maggie scolded her brother who sat in the kitchen without the light off, the creep.

“You were gone a long time.” Lincoln stated ignoring her comment. He tried going to sleep, but when he laid down next to his fiancée, and he was thinking of Holly, he felt guilty, so guilty that he couldn’t go to sleep. So, he came down here to the kitchen to wait for Maggie.

“So,” Maggie huffed, she was annoyed with her brother. She may have sworn to Holly that she wouldn’t say anything to him, but that didn’t mean she didn’t want to. Right now, it was hard for her to be near him, she was so angry with him. Because of her brother she missed out on five years with her niece, and Holly had to raise her baby all alone, and whilst in college. Not to mention he had been a total pig.

“So, I am curious, she was my friend too, how is she?” Lincoln did not understand why Maggie was angry with him. But he could feel it rolling of off her.

She wouldn’t tell Lincoln anything about Holly, she didn’t think he deserved to know, not after all he had done, but she couldn’t help but ask him.

“Did Holly ever tell you she was pregnant?” Maggie was hoping he would tell her the truth, as angry as she was with him, and as much as she believed Holly, she could not help but feel like there was a piece of the puzzle that was missing, and that if she could put it together, everything would be alright.

“Yeah, she did. It was the last time I saw her,” Holly already confessed that she had forced Lincoln to keep her secret, but still her friend was in trouble, why didn’t he say anything? Maggie was upset, she could have helped Holly if she had known. If Holly had begged her not to tell her parents, she would have listened.

In her anger, Maggie punched Lincoln hard in his arm. Lincoln rubbed the spot in his arm that hurt and scowled at his sister.

“What was that for?” He asked indignantly. What was her problem, he thought. All he did was ask how Holly was. Was that such a surprise? Was it so wrong that he cared about her?

“And you didn’t tell me.” Maggie punched him again. It felt good to hit him.

“Seriously, Margret, punch me again and I’m going to punch you back.” Lincoln threatened but he didn’t mean it, he would never hit a woman, let alone his little sister, but he did wish she would stop hitting him. Her punches hurt.

“You won’t punch me. You’re a surgeon, you wouldn’t risk your hand.” Maggie said confidently. “But call me Margret again and I’ll punch you in your face.” Maggie warned her brother. He knew she hated her stuffy old lady’s name. Her parents promised her that one day she would grow into it, she did not feel like she would.

“Why are you so angry, Maggie?” Lincoln felt dumbfounding. He thought she would be happy; she has wanted to see Holly again for so long.

“How could you not tell me that when Holly left, she was pregnant? I tried calling her for months. Even made the drive out to her college myself, only to find out she had transferred out of the dorms.” Maggie had vented to Lincoln about it a lot, he should have said something. Did her tears mean nothing to him?

“Because Holly asked me not to.” Lincoln replied cooly, but Maggie knew her brother, that was not the end of the story.

“So, you never listened to me or Holly before.” Maggie reminded him. “I could have helped her.” Maggie threw her hands up in frustration.

“I don’t know what you want me to tell you, Maggie. She didn’t want anyone to know, as for help, I assumed she had her baby’s dad around. I mean where else would she have gone if not to him.” Lincoln grumbled still feeling the bitter jealousy all these years later.

“She did go to the baby’s dad for help.” Maggie said angrily. “And he turned her away!” Maggie walked away. She had said too much, she was so angry with her brother that she almost told him everything. She could not risk it. Not if she wanted to be a part of Holly’s life. Not if she wanted to see Eve again.

Lincoln remained where he sat feeling bewildered. He remembered Eve’s sad little face and the way she frowned when she told him, “I don’t have a daddy.”

Did Holly tell Maggie who Eve’s father was? How many times was Lincoln going to go against his better judgement tonight? He followed his sister up the stairs to her room and barged his way in. He couldn’t stop himself.

“Did she tell you who the girl’s father was?” He demanded to know. The way Lincoln was acting right now, Maggie could finally imagine the boy Holly described, she hadn’t been able to imagine they were one in the same until now.

“Yes, she did.” Maggie glared at him, she watched his face carefully waiting to see if he gave anything away.

“And who is it?” Lincoln demanded to know.

“You have all the clues. You need to figure it out, Einstein.” Maggie, fed up with her brother pushed him out of the room and shut the door. Lincoln stood on the other side of the door; he tried to push his way back in, but Maggie had locked the door behind him.

“What does that mean?” He shouted. He knew Maggie could hear him, but she did not open the door for him, even when he started to bang on it.

“Baby, what are you doing?” Sasha, Lincoln’s fiancée, came to him, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

“I am sorry, baby, I didn’t mean to wake you. Maggie and I were just having a little argument. Nothing to worry about, let’s go back to bed.” Lincoln took his girlfriend by the hand raising it to his lips and planting a soft kiss on the back of her hand; he tried not to notice how plain she looked in comparison to Holly. In fairness, the whole world looked plane to him compared to Holly.

“What about this time?” Sasha smirked, Lincoln thought she was only teasing him but her smile was sincere. Sasha would never confess this to Lincoln, but she liked it when they argued.

Maggie was dead weight, always begging Lincoln to come visit, or asking him to take a local job. He was a brilliant surgeon. How was he supposed to make a name for himself if he practiced in some backwards small-town hospital? He has only been able to hold his family off this long because he has yet to complete his residency, but that won’t always be the case. As long as she could keep Lincoln away from his family, then he wouldn’t want to move back here. They had a good life in the city, she didn’t want to leave all that behind.

“Oh, nothing, just petty sibling stuff.” Lincoln dismissed the question. It was not something he particularly wanted to share with Sasha. She was the jealous type, and he did not want to fight with her about Holly.

“Okay, well can you argue with her about it when the sun is up?” Sasha poked at him.

“Nothing worth bringing up again.” Lincoln guided Sasha back to their bed. He let her curl herself up beside him. Lincoln knew how much Sasha liked it when he played with her hair, so he did just that until she fell asleep again. But still, he could not sleep. Maggie said that he should be able to guess who Eve’s father was, that meant they must know each other, but for the life of him, Lincoln could not remember Holly showing interest in any of the boys he used to know. As far as he knew, she only ever had eyes for him, and he had liked it that way. It was why it hurt so much when he found out she had been with someone else. Despite knowing how wrong it was, he always kind of thought she was his.

Lincoln thoughts drifted back to the night he felt like he regretted most as he stared up at the ceiling.

The masquerade party was likely his last chance to win Holly over before she went to college, where she would likely meet so many new and interesting people that she would completely forget about him. That’s why he got so drunk that night, because even then he couldn’t bring himself to ask her out, instead he got so drunk, he took a random girl to bed, she confessed her love for him, and blah blah blah so did every girl. They didn’t care about him at all, they just wanted a chance with the quarterback, and the man who was going to be a doctor they looked at him like he was their meal ticket, he repeated her cheap words back to her. By then, he knew it made the girls feel better about letting go of their inhibitions and she was all too willing to follow him back to his bed once he said the things she wanted to hear.

The sex was surprisingly good, but he was disgusted with himself, this was the last chance he had to be with Holly and he was squandering it with this girl who was selling herself for as cheap as the dollar store wig she was wearing. It was his fault, he knew that, but in his anger, he cursed the girl out and threw her from his room. She ran out crying. Ignoring her, he pulled on a pair of pants. It was then he noticed he forgot to put on a rubber. Now he wished he really had paid attention to who the girl was. He would have dragged her down to the chemist for a plan b, first thing in the morning.

He decided to chase the girl back to the party, but when he got there, he couldn’t see that cheap wig anywhere. A few girls come to talk to him, they touched him and chatted, but he was too distracted, he wanted to find the girl and ask her if she was on the pill. He wasn’t one to take chances.

He approached his sister and her small crowd. Holly had to be the only one at the party without a mask or wig, and for some reason she was crying. She was trying to leave the party, and Maggie was trying to talk her into staying, something must have happened to make her so upset. The masquerade theme had been her suggestion after all. Feeling awkward, he made some excuse about another party and left.

He should have asked her then why she was crying, was it over her baby’s dad? Did she know him then? She would have had to, and it would make sense that he had been at the party if, like Maggie suggested, he knew him.

If Lincoln knew Maggie like he thought he did, she would want to spend all her time with Holly and her daughter while they were in town, maybe he would get lucky and he would see her again. Maybe then he could ask her about it.