Forbidden Paths (14 page)

Chapter Twenty

Logan

“Did you have a good day, baby?” I ask her as we walk upstairs to our room.

“I did,” she smiles sweetly at me.

Faith rests her head on my shoulder and sighs. It makes me feel good to hear the contentment in her sigh. I never thought I’d ever see Faith again, let alone be here with her again as my girlfriend.

The love I have for this woman is timeless. It was proven over the time we’ve been apart. I’ll never let her go again. I wouldn’t survive her walking away again.

“Lo,” Levi calls coming up to us in the hall.

Turning to face him, Faith leans into my chest. “What’s up?” I ask as I wrap her in my arms, feeling her relax into my embrace.

He looks at Faith and smirks. “I need to talk to you about something. It’s kind of important.”

Following his gaze, I look down at Fay, who has fallen asleep in my arms. My heart swells. “Let me get her into bed and we can talk,” I whisper.

Levi nods. I scoop her up in my arms and carry her down to the room. My brother follows opening the door when we get there.  Laying her in the bed, I gently touch her face. This sight will never get old, never.

“Hey,” Levi whispers. “I know you don’t want to leave her and I understand. So I’ll just tell you about it in here.”

“Sure,” I say as I move over to the sitting area in the room and he follows me.

“I think there’s something wrong with Joey,” he practically blurts out.

“What do you mean?” My back stiffens at the thought of something being wrong with him.

“I heard a commotion in his room so I knocked. When I opened the door, he… He wasn’t his normal self. Then he had me dig out some pills for him. He was gripping his head like a vice,” shaking his head for a moment. “I’ve never seen him or anyone like that before.”

Staring at my brother, I can see immediately that he was really shaken up by this whole thing. What could be wrong with Joe? He’s never mentioned anything to me and there’s nothing in his record at wor… Realization dawns on me then.

“He’s never going to say what’s going on. I’m betting this has been going on for a while. If he were to say something, he could potentially lose his job for it. No matter how close we all are, he’ll never tell us.”

Levi’s head sagged. “You’re probably right. That bothers me because he’s family. I want to help him, if he needs it. Him suffering,” he flips his hand around, “whatever this is alone bothers me.”

“Me too. I thi…”

My sentence was cut off by a moan from Faith. It wasn’t a good moan. Levi and I both stare at her. She begins to toss and turn in the bed.

“I don’t care,” she screams. “You’ve taken everything from me. I fucking hate you!”

We both look at each other before our attention is drawn back to the bed, where Faith tosses and turns more violently on the bed.

“You’re going to do it anyway. Just fucking do it now. Kill me!”

Standing, I look at my brother, “I can’t let this go on.”

“We’ll talk later,” he says sadly looking at Faith.

My brother leaves and I walk to the bed. Not sure of what is going on, I tried to gauge what I should do.

“Baby,” I say softly. “Baby, wake up for me,” my voice a little louder.

Jerking awake, tears fall down her temples. Her sad, scared eyes meet mine. “He’s never going to stop,” she sobs.

“He will never hurt you again. I promise you. It will not happen,” I tell her emphatically.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I’m not letting you out of my sight ever again. When we go back home, you’ll move in with me. You can come be my secretary at work. I’m not taking a chance to lose either of you again.”

“You… you want me to move in with you?” She almost sounds shocked and it makes me laugh.

“Of course I do. Baby, you have to understand, I was a wreck without you. I’m not going back there again. You’re stuck with me now.”

She laughs softly. “I’d never say stuck. I just didn’t ever imagine being back to this point. Honestly, I was going to tell you, though I didn’t know it was
you
, that I was pregnant and work out visitation. Now, you’re talking about moving in together.”

“Baby, there is no way I’m doing just visitation. Not with our baby or with you,” I smirk.

Her smile is small, but it’s there. That’s all that matters to me. The nightmare was edging away, hopefully. My mind worked frantically to try and come up with something else to take her mind off it, besides making love.

“Tonight was something else, wasn’t it? Sitting around the fire pit.”

She leans back a little. “Your brothers are so grateful for you. What you did for them is incredible. Never thinking twice or complaining. Our baby is going to have one hell of a daddy,” she smiles lovingly at me before kissing me lightly.

“But I have complained,” I sigh. “See, our break up was fairly recent…” That day slowly drifted into my head playing out before my eyes.

“Where are you going?” Levi asks as he walks up to me in the garage.

“Out. You wanted me to get out of the house. Well here I go,” I snarl.

Levi’s eyes widen. “Okay,” the word is drawn out. “Are you okay?”

Moving past him, I climb into my truck mumbling, “What do you care?”

“Logan, you…”

Whatever else Levi was going to say was cut off when I shut the door to my truck and the roar of the engine. Backing down the driveway, I headed out to… Where? I don’t know. All I knew was I needed to leave before I completely lost it in front of them.

Unsure of how many times I kept driving out to the river, I finally stopped at a bar. Not even caring if they served me or not, I just wanted the noise, cigarettes, clinking glasses, music any of it to distract me from the hole that now holds where my heart was.

To my surprise, they served me. Not only do they serve me, but they keep them coming. Then a woman walks up to my table. Walking in circles in front of my table, my stomach turned.

“Can you stop walking in circles? You’ll make us both sick,” I slur.

The woman laughs and pulls me up by my arm. Before I know it we are stumbling for the door and my mouth is blubbering unstoppable.

“I just lost my girlfriend to a man that she doesn’t even want to be with. All my life has been taking care of someone. There’s never been any time for me. No one cares about me.”

“Well, I care, Lenny.”

“It’s Logan,” I trip and almost fall flat on my face then start laughing uncontrollably.

“Yeah, whatever. Look, let’s go back here. I’ll make you feel all better,” her voice sounding almost as funny as mine.

We stumble along the side of the bar to a back alley. She continues to pull me past a dumpster before pushing me against a fence. Before I realize it she has my pants down around my thighs and her mouth is on my dick.

“Yes, this is what I need. Please make me feel something. Anything. I just need to feel for a single moment. A moment to forget the pain.”

Here was a woman willing to suck me off and I couldn’t get hard. All I kept picturing was Faith walking around the corner finding me with her and running from me for good. My heart was breaking.

“If you can’t get it up, honey, then I can’t help you.”

“I can’t do this,” I mumble.

“Yeah I kind of figured. Oh well, night’s still young. See ya kid.”

The woman stumbled away and I’m left there alone trying to get pants, that seem to be glued to my thighs. My belt had to have some kind of slime on it because it kept slipping from my hands.

“You’re a real fucking loser, Logan James. Sixteen year old drop out with no life. You take care of your brothers. That’s all you are is a caregiver, a person to give life to those that were too young to do it themselves. I fucking hate my life. Fucking hate it! If I didn’t have to take care of my fucking brother…” I gasp. “This is all their fault. If they’d never been there I wouldn’t have lost my whole fucking life to begin with. If Mom and Dad hadn’t died, I’d be free to have a life of my own. My life fucking sucks!” I roar as I finally manage to get my pants up and fastened.

My life was falling apart. For so long I’ve never had anything outside of my family and then Faith happens and I’m destroyed. There was nothing left for me.

“Why couldn’t I have died that day and not Mom?” I mumble as I stagger to my truck to hopefully sleep this off. “I’m sorry Mom and Dad, all I seem to do is bring people down. I’m doing that with your kids and my brothers. I’m failing you and them.”

Just as I stepped off the curb to go to my truck, I hear a loud screeching noise just as the world lights up next to me. Turning my head, I see a car speeding in my direction. A small smile plays on my lips a moment after my eyes widen. Could this be my answered prayers? Could this torturous life finally be ending?

But just as I thought that, the car swerved and ran into my truck. “Go fucking figure.”

My knees gave out from beneath me and I fell to the ground crying. The drunk haze lifts and I realize all the things I’ve thought and said tonight. Guilt was eating me alive. My unhappiness had nothing to do with my brothers or my parents and yet here I am blaming them for everything that has gone wrong in my life.

This fucked up life that I’m living is my own fault, not theirs. It’s all mine. Pulling myself to my feet, I head home leaving my torn up truck behind. But the closer I got to my house, the harder it got to continue to walk.

If any of them had heard me tonight, they’d hate me. And maybe they should. They don’t have the life they deserve, but hopefully they understand that I’m doing everything I can to make it a life that they can grow from and in.

Opening the door, Levi immediately greets me. “Where have you been?”

“Drinking,” I mumble, no sense in lying to him.

Levi was quiet for a bit before finally speaking. “Lanny is sick and you know that you’re the only one that can calm him down. But I’d suggest brushing your teeth. You don’t want Lanny smelling
that
on you.”

Nodding, I fell back to the man I was before Faith and it helps ease some of the pain.

“Oh, baby. You were hurting. We all say things we regret when we’re hurting,” Faith says curling into me.

“Yeah, I know, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less. My brothers are everything to me and I don’t regret what I’ve done for them… for us.”

She wraps her arms tightly around me. “They know and so do I. You are an amazing person. I’m one hell of a lucky girl to have you.”

# # #

Two days later…

Faith went down to the ocean for a swim with Lia while I clean up our bedroom. It was just as I was finishing up that I hear Faith’s phone ringing. Walking over to the night side table, I grab her phone and answer it.

“Hello?”

A maniacal laugh fills the void on the phone, right before a chilling voice filled my ears. “Oh, this is even better.”

“Who is this?”

Even though his voice sent a chill up and down my back, I still couldn’t help myself. It was like my instincts just needed the proof that this cold calculating voice was indeed the very man that has been abusing my woman.

“I’m pretty sure you already know who this is. After all you’re answering my fiancée’s phone.”

“She’s not your fiancée,” I ground out.

“Oh, but she is. Now, enough of the idle chit chat of who’s who. Seems you have something I want.”

“Well, you’re not getting her so we can end this now.”

“Oh, but I’ve already had her so many times,” he laughs.

A growl escapes before I can stop it and part of me didn’t want to stop it. “You will never touch her again. Over my dead fucking body.”

“That can be arranged. Look you want to keep your precious slut safe and I want what’s owed to me, one way or another.  Meet me in two days, you’ll find all the information in your mailbox at your house.”

A chill morphed into ice. My words lodge in my throat, but it didn’t matter because he had hung up the phone. Instead, I stood there frozen holding the cellphone to my ear. My heart hammered in my chest and I knew what I needed to do.

Tonight would be the last night I’d be with Faith, if only for a few minutes. First, I need to talk to my brothers. If this was going to happen, I needed their help to pull it off.

Dear Lord, please don’t let her hate me for what I’m about to do. Amen.

# # #

Hazel

Looking around, I make my way down to the beach to see what everyone is up to. It’s hard to stay so quiet, to not want to laugh and joke around with everyone. How can I possibly have fun? It’ll only lead to losing those close to me again.

Joey sits at the water edge. My heart clenches in my chest at the sad forlorn look on his handsome face. He honestly looks lost. The first night we were together was one of the best nights of my life. The second night even better until he ruined it by saying he was falling in love with me.