Chapter 4

(5 Years Later)

Nick POV

          I woke up this morning angry, I wake up every morning angry though so it’s nothing new. I haven’t actually been happy since she left me. I pretended most days to keep everyone from worrying about me, but inside I was dead. She took every bit of life from me when she left. I had thought I could talk her into working things out when we met to sign the divorce papers, but she wouldn’t even look at me. I had felt so defeated that I couldn’t stop the tears when they came. She was all I had ever wanted, but someone had sent her pictures of that one night, the only time I had failed to make it home.

          We had gotten into a fight before I left for work that morning, and it continued well into the day. She wanted to sell the townhouse and move out of the city, but I didn’t want to. She wanted me to quit my job too, saying that I had more than enough money, that I didn’t have to work. But I loved my job, so I refused. We had fought about it all day, to the point where she had screamed at me that my refusal to quit my job and sell my townhouse was the reason she was never going to give me children. I was hurt and angry, so I went to have a drink after work. I didn’t intend to drink that much, but before I knew it I was wasted.

          I didn’t even know where that woman came from, but she seemed nice enough & wanted to help me get home. But she didn’t get me a ride like she had said, she took me to a hotel and said she couldn’t get my phone to unlock, and I was too drunk to do it, so she was going to help me get a hotel instead. She helped me get a room, and then walked me up to it. By the time I realized the position I’d put myself in and yelled for her to leave, it was already too late. The pictures had already been taken.

          I was naïve and too stupid to see that I been played then, or maybe I just didn’t want to see it because I loved her so much. I knew it the day I received my divorce papers though. I still had that damned tarot card and the file she had on me that had been put in my mailbox the same day I went got them from my lawyer’s office. I loved her more than I’d ever loved anything, but for her, the love we shared was just a job.

          I had refused to believe that though. I searched for her for over a year before everyone told me I needed to give up. I had found her apartment in Lawndale and went there looking for her. Those guys that hung out in front of the building just laughed as they told me she’d moved out already. I found her other office too. I had even tracked Jazmine down to see if she knew where Lyvie had disappeared to, but she said she didn’t. I knew when I seen Jazmine in her expensive car, living in a new house in an upscale neighborhood, that Lyvie had split my money with her.

          I had told her that I hoped she was happy now that she’d gotten her revenge. She rolled her eyes with a smirk and said that she was now that she has gotten a chance to see me like this. Then she laughed as she shut the door in my face. Honestly though, I knew I’d messed her up pretty bad if she felt she had to resort to hiring Lyvie to break my heart and take my money. I had felt bad for it, thinking about how she had probably been hurting as much as I was after Lyvie left me.

          I hired a private detective to try and find her, but the most he had found was that she had changed her name, but the documents were sealed, so he couldn’t find what she had changed it to. When I had someone try to hack them they said they couldn’t get through the encryptions and firewalls that had been put in place, or something like that. She covered her tracks well, so finally, after a year and a half, I gave up. I didn’t want to, but my family and Josh finally convinced me that it was what was best. They told me that I needed to go back to work and move on with my life.

          So, I did. I pretended to be ok most days, though I still drank heavily after work every night. Josh had gotten a girlfriend while I had been obsessed with finding Lyvie, so he never joined me anymore. Instead, he had used the last 5 years to fall in love, get engaged, and then married. I had stood as his best man at his wedding, but I barely remembered it. The only thing I remember is giving him the townhouse as a wedding gift, but that’s only because I had the papers drawn up while I was sober. When they opened the envelope, his wife Maddie was surprised, but he just smiled at me sadly. He knew I couldn’t stand being there without her, so he accepted the gift & allowed me to take over his condo lease.

          I hopped in the shower to wash the away the whiskey that I’m sure was coming out of my pores and brushed my teeth before going into the kitchen and making myself coffee. It was Monday morning, and they were always the roughest after drinking myself into a stupor all weekend. Usually Josh would pull me out of the bar on Friday and Saturday nights, but he was out of town this weekend, so I spent the entire weekend in my favorite bar. Funny how that place was the only place I still enjoyed going to. Maybe its because she and I had never really spent much time there. Either way, I had to pull myself together to be presentable for work. The last thing I needed was for my family and my coworkers to stage an intervention and send me to rehab, which both had already threatened to do on more than one occasion.

          I made it to work and had just sat my coffee in my desk when Josh came through my door wearing a big stupid grin. I was happy that he had found Maddie and the two of them were happy, but some days I just really didn’t want to be bothered with his giddiness, and today was one of those days.

          “What do you want Josh?” I asked him as I bent down to start up my computer.

          “Well, I have some incredible news that I thought you might want to hear, but if you’re going to be a dick today, I’ll just keep it to myself.” He replied sourly, making me feel bad the attitude I had given him.

          “Sorry for taking it out on you man, I’m just really not feeling it today.” I told him, hoping he would just come out with whatever his news was.

          “Well I think this will cheer you up… I think, well, I accidentally found her.” He said slowly, gauging my reaction as he spoke.

          “Her… as in, Lyvie? You accidentally found HER?” I asked him cautiously, perking up from his news.

          “Yea, I think so. It’s crazy how it happened. Turns out her big brother is a frat brother of mine.” He told me.

          My heart started pounding in my ears as my mind registered what he was telling me. He had accidentally found her, after all these years, he had stumbled across her on accident. Only because her brother was in his fraternity, and he had gone away to some sort of fraternity gathering this weekend. She had told me she was an orphan with no siblings, but I should have known that was a lie. She had an older brother, and because of that, Josh now knew where she was.

          “Where is she?” I asked him abruptly.

          “I know where she’s living, but Nick, before I tell you where she is, and you run off to find her, there’s some things you should know about her. I just don’t want you running off half cocked and not knowing what you’re running into.” He told me solemnly, gesturing for me to sit as he took one of the seats in front of my desk.

          I didn’t want to sit though. I wanted to know where she was so I could go to her. Whatever there was to know about her, she could tell me herself. She could look me in the eyes and tell me the truth about who she was. She owed me that much. I really didn’t want to hear it from him, but I knew he wasn’t going to tell me where I could find her unless I listened to what he had to say first, so I took a seat at my desk and waited for him to speak.

          “So, her older brother, his name is Raymond. He is my age, and we were good friends in college. I only found out she was his sister because as it turns out, Maddie knows her and had met her brothers before, so she asked about her. You got rid of all your pictures of her, so Maddie has never seen her, or she could have told us her real name. It’s Rozelynn, by the way. Rozelynn Johnson. Anyway, he came up to say hi, and Maddie asked if he remembered her, then she told him that she was his sister Rozelynn’s roommate during their first term of freshman year at Columbia. Turns out she is also really smart. But the two of them started talking about his sister and he pulled up pictures of her to show Maddie, that’s when I realized that Rozelynn was Lyvie.” He told me as he played with his tie.

          It was a nervous habit of his, but I couldn’t figure out why he was nervous. Maybe because Maddie had known Lyvie all along? He hadn’t actually told me anything about her as he spoke, and I was starting to get annoyed. I just wanted to go to her, but he still hadn’t told me where to find her yet.

          “Ok, her name is Rozelynn, good to know. Now tell me where she is.” I told him, visibly annoyed.

          “Will you just listen to me man! You don’t know this girl. I know that you think you do, but you don’t. She is nothing like what she pretended to be. She told you that she was an only child and an orphan right? Well that couldn’t be further from the truth. There are 8 kids in their family, EIGHT. They were raised by a single mother, and their oldest brother played dad to the younger 4. She has a huge scar on her right hip, right?” He stood to pace as he was speaking, before turning to me to ask his question.

          “She said she got it in the car accident that killed her parents. Obviously that was a lie though.” I said quietly as I realized that he was right, I didn’t know her like I thought I did.

          “She did get it in a car accident. And while it obviously wasn’t her parents that died in that car accident, people did die. Her best friend and her high school sweetheart died in that accident. She almost died too. The scar is from where a piece of metal went through her hip bone and shattered it. She had to get a hip replacement at the age of 16. I only know that because Maddie was asking Ray a bunch of questions about it, then told me later about the accident when I asked her. She told me that Rozelynn and a guy named Johnny were trapped in the car at the bottom of a ravine from 12:06 at night until they were finally cut out of it at 10:36 the next morning. The accident wasn’t even discovered until 7:38 in the morning. Rozelynn told her that her boyfriend and her best friend had been killed in the accident, and that the same piece of metal that went through her hip, had also gone through her best friend’s skull first, so her best friend’s dead body was pinned to her for hours. Maddie remembered that after all these years because how do you forget your college roommate telling you something like that, you know?” He told me, whispering the last part.

          It gave me some relief to know that she hadn’t lied to me completely. I also understood why she never talked about how she had gotten the scar, just that it was a car accident. While it didn’t excuse what she had done to me, I certainly understood how she ended up so fucked up. Enduring that type of trauma definitely took its toll on people, I knew that much. And to lose two people that she must have cared for deeply so traumatically, it was no wonder that she could easily be so emotionally detached. I definitely felt like I understood her better now. Even if it didn’t make what she did ok, at least I could understand how she was able to do it so callously.

          “That’s awful, but it makes her make more sense to me. The way she could just be emotionally detached enough to walk away so easily. I suppose once you endure that type of trauma so young, you probably have a hard time becoming emotionally attached to anyone ever again.” I replied as I reached for my coffee.

          “That’s not… She was emotionally attached to you. Ray told Maddie that she went through a painful divorce 5 years ago that hurt her so bad she finally came home after disappearing for years. The look in his eyes as he said it, man. He said that… he told her that Rozelynn must have really loved the guy because she risked her life to have his baby. With the amount of scar tissue she had from the accident, he said that the doctors warned her that it could kill her and encouraged her to abort but she wouldn’t. He said that she bled out and almost died when she went into labor, but their older sister saved her life. She has a little girl, Nick, your little girl. Her name is Selah, she’s 4.” He said solemnly.

          The words took the air out of my lungs, causing me to gasp. I closed my eyes as my body swarmed with emotions. I was a dad, I have a little girl. A little girl that she had kept from me all these years. How could she just keep her from me? She knew that having kids was the only thing I’d ever wanted. My mind went back to that fight that ultimately ended our marriage, where she’d said she would never have my babies. I knew now that physically she couldn’t, or at least shouldn’t have. But she did, even though she knew it could kill her, she had my baby, my little girl.

          “She’s an adorable little thing. She looks like her mama, but she has your eyes. Ray said that she had her daddy’s eyes as he showed us pictures of her, and he wasn’t kidding. She has your eyes man.” He spoke as I sat there in my office chair nodding to let him know I heard him.

          “Where is she? Where are they?” I asked him when I finally opened my eyes.

          I wanted, no I needed to go to them. I had so many questions for her, so many things I needed to know. And my little girl, I had already missed 4 years of her life, I wouldn’t miss another moment. I don’t care what her mother thinks or says. She was mine, and I was going to be a father to her.

          “They’re in Virginia. A small town outside of Richmond. But Nick, she’s uh… she’s married. Some Marine buddy of her oldest brother’s.” He told me.

          I nodded to him as I started booking myself a flight to Virginia. I was going to see her, and I didn’t care if she was married or not. She had my baby, my little girl, and right now that was the only thing I was concerned with. I needed to meet my daughter, to hold her, to hug her. I didn’t care if she already had a stepdad, or if she believed he was her real dad. She was my little girl, and I wasn’t going to let them keep her from me.