I’d never known what to make of it. I just put it down to quirkiness. It was almost shocking to find that his younger sister was on the same wavelength. It made me wonder which of them was to blame for the nonsense.
“Who told you that?” I asked, twisting in his arms. “Where do these stories come from?”
He winked at me. “That’d be telling, wouldn’t it?”
“That’s the idea, Alex,” I huffed. “I’m trying to work out if you’re the crazy one or if it’s all down to Charli.”
“There’s nothing wrong with believing in something, Gabs,” he whispered.
“Do you believe?” I asked, still pressing for a straight answer.
He thought for a long moment, keeping his focus on my eyes the whole time. “I believe in giving little girls hope that magic is real. What’s life without a little magic?”
“You told Charli these stories?”
He infinitesimally smiled. “For a long time, I had nothing else to give her.”
***
My brother is four years older than me. We were close as children, grew apart as teenagers and closed the gap a little as adults. He now lives in Quebec with his wife. Both are attorneys, which seems to be a common career choice for Décarie men.
Obviously he’d had no hand in raising me, but he’d never felt the need to inject my life with moments of magic either. I couldn’t deny it. I was struggling to understand the bond between Alex and Charli. I wasn’t going to get any more information from him, so when he took my by the hand and led me inside, I vowed to use the opportunity to investigate some more.
He’d downplayed their quaint little house hugely. It was neat as a pin, nicely furnished and had a lovely homely feel.
I wandered to the centre of the lounge room, just as he’d done when checking out my cottage for the first time. “You made it out to be very different,” I chided. “I was expecting beanbags and milk crates.”
Alex dropped his head and smiled down at the floor. “Would you like a tour? I have an awesome bed.”
Not that I’d ever admit it to him, I was very curious to check out his bedroom. But I also wanted to see the rest of the house. We’d already covered the lounge room. We moved on to the kitchen. And then we were done.
“That about covers it,” he announced, walking us the very short distance to the lounge room.
“I love it,” I told him. “Thank you for showing me around. You’re a good host.”
He smiled, and finally began to relax a little. “I’ll make you some coffee.”
“I’m actually trying to cut back on coffee,” I revealed. “How about tea?”
He leaned down and chastely kissed me. “Coming right up.”
Alex left the room, leaving me to check it out properly. The side wall was completely taken up by a long bookshelf. The Blakes obviously weren’t readers. There was a tatty old copy of Peter Pan, an even tattier copy of Robinson Crusoe and a brand new French dictionary that looked as if it had never been opened. The irony was not lost on me.
I turned my attention to the assortment of photo frames. The pictures gave away no secrets. It looked like any other collection of family photographs. I noticed one of a woman, probably in her early thirties. I thought she vaguely resembled Charli and immediately jumped to the conclusion that it was their mother. Alex had hardly spoken of her, except to tell me she was a raging alcoholic who’d managed to drink herself to death at the tragically young age of forty.
Alex was the most private person I knew. It was hard not to take it personally. He never freely gave information and I tried hard not to push him. When he first told me that he loved me, I found the declaration extraordinary. I immediately questioned him about it.
“No big deal, Gabs. You love who you love,” he reasoned. “The least I could do was tell you about it.”
Those were the moments that reminded me why I endured such cloak and dagger. Bizarrely, it was also those moments that made me desperately want to understand him better.
One more thing on the shelf caught my eye. It was a Father’s Day card. The word ‘father’ had been crossed out and replaced with Alex’s name and a smiley face. In a wicked move, I took it off the shelf to read the inside.
This year I’m giving you 365 apologies. That’s one for every day that I was a jerk. Thank you for staying at the bottom of the tree.
Happy Alex Day!
Love and wishes,
Charli.
I suddenly had a huge lump in my throat that was impossible to swallow away. Before I had a chance to put it back, Alex appeared out of nowhere and said my name. I knew he was unhappy with me. He’d called me Gabrielle.
“I’m sorry,” I stammered, quickly placing the card back on the shelf. “I don’t mean to pry.”
He set the mugs of tea down on the coffee table before speaking. “Yes you do,” he said bleakly. “I haven’t given you much to work with, have I?”
I hesitantly took a few steps toward him. “I’m trying so hard to build a life with you, Alex,” I said in a plea for understanding. “You make it so difficult for us to move forward. I’ve tried hard to understand this situation but I just can’t.”
I literally watched the colour drain from his perfect face. “I’m going to tell you everything.”
I rushed over to him and reached up, taking his face in my hands. “That’s all I want.”
His mouth fell open as if he was trying to speak but no sound came out. I waited for him to try again. “She’s my daughter.” His voice sounded nothing like his own. I was sure I’d misheard him.
I dropped my hold on his face and quickly shook my head, trying to shift the confusion from my brain. “Your what?”
“Charli is my daughter.”
I felt my legs wobble. Alex must’ve noticed it because he grabbed my elbows and lowered me backward onto the couch. I couldn’t think of a single thing to say and I barely heard a word of his rambling explanation.
I managed to pick up on a few key points. He’d had her at seventeen, her mother had never been a part of her life and his own mother had tried claiming Charli as her own. He hadn’t even started the lie about being her brother. It was entirely his mother’s doing.
“For the first time ever, I’d found a stable life in the Cove,” he explained. “To make sure it was a quiet, stable life I kept up with the charade. I wanted Charli to grow up here.”
The mention of her name brought an important question to the forefront – perhaps the most important one of all. “Does Charli know?” I choked.
His eyes drifted from mine and he slowly shook his head. “No. She has no idea.”
I felt ill, so ill that I feared I might throw up. I jumped to my feet and made a beeline for the door.
“Stay, Gabrielle,” he called. “Please.”
I turned back to face him. “No. I can’t do this. I’m so sorry.”
I don’t know if he spoke again. I ran to my car and didn’t look back.
14. OFF TRACK
The next week moved impossibly slowly. Thankfully I’d given up coffee the week before. It made staying away from the café a little easier.
I hadn’t heard a peep from Alex. I saw Charli almost every day. Of course, she was oblivious to the drama, just as she had been her whole life. I felt hugely sorry for the young girl. The last six months of my life had been a lie, but her whole life had been a lie.
It made me wonder how different she would be if she’d known the truth from the beginning, then realised it probably wouldn’t have made a difference. At the end of the day Charli was just like any other sullen, moody sixteen-year-old girl. The notable difference between her and the rest of the pack was that she was smarter than most. Stapling a girl to the pinup board by her hair is no mean feat.
I spent a total of four hours in detention with Charli that week, and it was more heinous than usual. I spent a lot of time staring at her, and trying not to be obvious about it.
Now that the truth was out, a million
blanks had been filled. She was the spitting image of her father, which only added to my torture. I desperately wanted to ask her how he was, but couldn’t think of a casual way of doing so.
I asked her about the process of stapling someone to a pinup board instead.
Charli smirked at me. “She volunteered.”
I didn’t believe her for a second. No girl in her right mind would voluntarily submit to that, even one as thick as Lily Tate.
***
I was looking forward to getting home. A good book, a glass of wine and my couch were calling me. As soon as I pulled onto the driveway, I realised a quiet evening was probably off the agenda.
Alex was there, chopping wood.
To say I was confused was an understatement. I spent a long few minutes sitting in my car, staring across the yard at him. It wasn’t a manoeuvre that fazed Alex. His axe never missed a swing. Apart from one quick glance over his shoulder, he paid no attention to me.
Eventually, I got out of the car and wandered over to him. “Why are you here?” I punched out the question, sounding totally annoyed.
He swung hard and belted a log so hard that his axe got stuck. “I’m chopping your wood for you.” He leaned down and wrenched his axe free. “You must be running low by now.”
“Thank you,” I muttered.
“No problem.”
And that was that. He continued smashing wood and I stood there, doing nothing more productive than trying to stop the heels of my shoes sinking into the lawn.
“Are you coming inside?” I eventually asked.
“I’ll bring some wood in for you,” he said flatly.
“Thank you.”
“No problem.”
Ugh! The man was impossible. Alex Blake was in shutdown mode and I was certain I didn’t deserve it. I’d done nothing wrong. I wasn’t the one who lied. If anyone should’ve been pissed off, it was me.
“I shall take my own wood inside,” I declared.
Alex dropped the axe to the ground and finally looked at me properly. “I shan’t stop you,” he mocked, infuriating me even more.
I’d gone too far to back down. I stooped down and picked up a small log, managing to keep a grip on it with one hand as I held it away from my body. It was a stupid display that made Alex laugh.
“It’s going to take a long time if you’re going to do it one pissy piece of kindling at a time,” he teased. “Put a bit of back into it.”
“I will manage,” I grumbled, dropping the log and brushing my hands off.
“Put your arms out like this,” he ordered, holding arms out and putting his elbows to his chest.
For reasons unknown, I mimicked him.
“Good girl,” he said, right before he loaded my arms up with two heavy logs. “Now you’re good to go.”
Go where? The only place I was likely to go was flat on my face in a heap. My high heels had sunken into the lawn, pinning me to the ground. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t even kick them off. I was stuck.
With no other option, I dumped the wood on the ground, sorted out my mobility issues and stormed into the house.
Alex strolled in a few minutes later, armed with enough wood to see me through the whole weekend. He stacked it neatly, arranged a few logs in the fireplace and spent the next few minutes getting it alight – all without saying a single word. It was excruciatingly obvious that he wasn’t going to be the one to back down.
I blew out a long breath as I ventured into the room, clueless as to how it was going to play out.
“You don’t need to do this,” I said, holding my position behind the couch.
Alex stood up and dusted off his hands. “I don’t mind.”
“Will you stay for a while?”
He gazed at me for a long time before finally speaking. “No. I have to get home.”
I nodded, pretending to understand. “Okay, well, you should go then.”
He walked over to me, leaned down and planted a long kiss on my forehead. And then he was gone. He slipped out the door without saying another word.
15. RESOLUTION
I thought the strange shift between us would be temporary. Eventually we’d have to talk about things. We loved each other. People who love each other work to solve their problems.
At first, Alex’s unwillingness to resolve anything with me was hard to comprehend, but then I realised he’d taken the hard line of believing that all the problems he had were his own.
I was completely on the outer. All my information came from studying Charli. I could usually tell when she and Alex were at loggerheads. She’d quieten down and pull her head in for a few days. When things were good at home, she was stapling people to pinup boards at school.
Alex and I rarely spoke. Awkward exchanges at the café were horrible. He’d make pointless small talk and we’d discuss the weather. I missed the flirty side of him. I missed everything about him – even the way he called me Gabs.
One thing didn’t change. Bizarrely, he turned up at my cottage every Friday to chop wood. I didn’t question it. I just accepted it because it meant that for a few short hours a week I could pretend he was still mine.
It would start with an hour of smashing wood and end with a kiss on my forehead. Sometimes he’d break the routine and tell me he missed me. I’d ask him to stay. He’d leave anyway. It was maddening.
It was a routine that had carried on for over six weeks.
Getting us back on track seemed impossible. I could barely recall what the track looked like, but remembered it being far more enjoyable than watching him stack wood and walk out the door.
As a last ditch effort, I took a chance and cooked his favourite meal, coq au vin. By the time he walked into the house that evening, the smell was wafting through the whole house.
I waited until he got the fire lit and then made my move. “I made you chicken for dinner.”
Abandoning the fire, he turned to face me. “Thank you, but I can’t stay.”
“I’m not asking you stay,” I shot back. “You can take it home with you. I figure it’s the least I can do considering you’ve been keeping my fire going all these weeks. Consider it payment for services rendered.”
His eyes left mine as he dropped his head and smirked down at the floor. “I’ve never been paid with chicken stew before.”
I felt my whole chest tighten at the mere mention of stew. I wanted to run across the room and smack him.
“I remembered that it’s your favourite,” I said sourly. “I thought you’d like it.”
He looked up at me again, smiling this time. “What are you planning to have for dinner?”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, if you’re giving me the stew, what are you going to have?”
I shook my head a few times, unable to answer his silly question.
Alex stalked toward me, stopping when I was just about in reach. “To be fair, I should probably share the stew with you,” he murmured, inching closer to me.
My heart was belting through my chest and breathing had suddenly become something that required effort.
“What’s the matter, Gabs?” he asked in a deliciously low tone. “You seem a little flustered.”
“You know exactly what you’re doing, Alex,” I whispered. “This is make or break time for you.”
He leaned in, breathing his next words into my hair. “How do you figure that?”
“To be left hanging would be a cruel and unusual punishment,” I said, sounding a little stronger. “Don’t do it to me.”
He put his hands on my shoulders and spun me around to face him, managing to kill the mood in an instant.
“Is that what you think?” he asked, aghast. “That I’m punishing you? You ended it, Gabrielle.”
“I did no such thing!”
He dropped his hold on me and took a step back. A look of pure confusion swamped him. “If I remember correctly, your parting words when you left my house were along the lines of ‘I’m sorry. I can’t do this
.’ That sounded pretty final.”
“I wanted to work it out,” I said roughly.
He shook his head, frowning. “What do you want to work out? You can’t handle my situation. I’m still living my situation. Nothing has changed.”
“So you still haven’t told her?” My voice was small.
“No, I haven’t told her,” he spat. “And I don’t need a pushy princess dictating how the future with my kid is going to play out.”
“What are you so afraid of, Alex?” I asked bravely.
The anger that was building quickly receded. He answered me calmly and painfully truthfully. “She’ll hate me, Gabrielle. I’m all she’s ever known, and it’s all been a lie. I’m protecting myself, not her.”
I slowly shook my head. “She’s going to have to know eventually.”
“And I will cross that bridge when I come to it,” he mumbled.
“And what about us?” I asked.
He finally smiled, and it was perfect. “I like us.”
“I miss us,” I replied.
Alex reached out and drew me in close. “You’re my art, Gabs,” he murmured.
I clung to his forearms, ensuring he kept a safe distance from me. I hadn’t finished with him yet.
“What do you mean?”
He lightly pressed his warm lips to mine. “You told me that art is beauty. You’re my beauty and I love you.”
“Let’s keep it real, sweetheart,” I quipped. “You only love me for my stews.”
16. VISITOR
Being back on track was spectacular. Being with Alex never grew old and I treasured every minute we spent together. Keeping our relationship to ourselves wasn’t turning out to be so bad either. Our lives moved slowly, but we were still moving forward.
The school year finally ended and after a lovely warm summer, drifted into a new one. I expected Charli’s final year of high school to be a little more laid back. Jasmine Tate finally graduated, leaving Lily and Lisa to do her bidding. Even combined they were no match for Charli. By the end of the first term, they’d all but given up on their campaign to destroy her. Nasty comments between the two factions were inevitable, but nothing compared to the year before.