I'm the Last One That You'll Ever Remember
Chapter 174: Flower Girl
With a gasp, Pastel shuffled back a few steps from the man she loved, her brown eyes gaping at him like he came back from the dead. Her hand shot up to cover her mouth as her stomach lurched in her body. She didn’t know if she was going to puke right there in the small store within the Mall, or if she was going to faint to the floor from what Poison just said to her.
Standing before her in a lengthy black coat over black jeans and a black shirt with his signature combat boots, Poison simply stared at her with indifference. From the way he looked no one would think he had said anything gruesome to her, but he had. She had marched far and wide to locate this man again after he renounced the Killjoy family and was eliminated off their radar by Kobra, their leader. It took patience she wasn’t capable of, and time she didn’t want to deplete to pinpoint him in the Mall today in some tailor store that didn’t appear like it ever had abundant traffic running through it with how barren it was. There was no one else around but them and some random little boy that had to have been deserted by his parents or something because he was unattended in the store with no other adult in sight.
Instead of reuniting with the man she loved and the father of her child, she was snubbed and treated like garbage. She had told Poison that she was pregnant. He didn’t care. She told him the child was theirs. He didn’t care. As badly as she wanted to refute this encounter and chalked it up as some imaginary nightmare she had fashioned up in her own delusional mind...Pastel didn’t think she could. Poison had made himself loud and clear. Her own ears were ringing from his response.
“And here we are, Mr. Way!” The owner of the store, Renee, sang as she stepped out of the changing room to sweep the curtain aside so the little girl could step out in all her splendor. “May I present to you, your little flower girl!”
Gerard’s face softened as he reeled around to face his little Venetia in the dress her grandmother had custom ordered for her by a renowned Panamanian designer to wear in her friend’s wedding as the flower girl. It was unlike any flower girl dress he’d ever seen, and it made him relieved that their bride had a conservative wedding dress, for the dress was inspired vastly by that very design. It was a long rose pink tulle dress that poofed out like a Princess’s dress would, and had a wine red lace pattern over the chest and stomach. Her hair was down and cascading over her shoulders as she smiled up at him and did a twirl for him to see, the hem of her dress sweeping up over her ankles. “Look, Daddy!”
Powerless to compose the extraordinary emotions mounting in him at seeing his little Princess look like a real-life Princess, Gerard swallowed past the lump in his throat and blinked the tears aside to gape at her. Pastel was a thing of the past, dying into the shadows as if she hadn’t ever existed in the first place. Stepping forward, he crouched down before Venetia, incapable of wiping the proud smile stretching wide across his face. “Oh, my little Princess, look at you indeed! I have never seen anyone so beautiful, Netia. Who needs a Disney Princess when I already have one of my very own?”
Wanting to know what all the commotion is about, Lorenzo shot out of the clothing rack he had been camping in and stepped past a woman garbed in dark shades to inspect. Looking his sister up and down in a dress, Lorenzo made a face at his dad, not understanding why he was marveling at her so much. Had she done something cool while he’d been playing and had missed it?
Standing in the background like a forgotten TV prop, Pastel felt the air escape her lungs, leaving her opening and closing her mouth like a fish to breath. That little girl had called Poison...daddy. Pastel didn’t understand why she said that. Her brain couldn’t cope with the notion that Poison possibly had children of his own. It wasn’t possible! She had been the only one with him this entire time!
Never, not even once, had Pastel ever heard of Poison fraternizing with another woman in or outside of Killjoy's various stations. So how on earth had he managed to father a whole living breathing child without her knowledge? It didn’t make sense! None of this made sense!
And yet, Pastel couldn’t rebuff what she was seeing with her own two eyes. All she had to do was look at the little girl to see for herself. Poison’s face was practically her face. They were identical twins except for the fact that her eyes were hazel to his light brown, and her chocolate hair was lighter than his black and lengthier. But it was undeniable that she was his. A person would have to be clinically insane not to see it, and Pastel wasn’t clinically insane.
Tilting her head to the side to scrutinize the child even further, Pastel couldn’t help but wonder if the baby growing inside her would look this much like it’s father. If this little girl could only be hers and Poison then maybe…
Feeling a tame hand on her arm, Pastel snapped her head to the right to see the owner looking at her with an easy smile. “Excuse me, my name is Renee, I’m the owner of this store. You must be the child’s mother.”
Pastel clamped over her mouth to impede the sob that burst forth from her lips at her inaccurate speculation. Muffling it, she twisted around unsteadily and darted through the exit of the store, trying her best not to make even more of a scene than she already did.
“Oh my!” Renee gasped, covering her hand over her mouth as she watched the woman flee from her store like she was going to have a breakdown. Her wide brown eyes turned to meet Mr. Way’s as she pointed in the direction the woman went. “Forgive me, Mr. Way! Your wife, she just ran out of the store!”
“She’s not my wife!” Gerard corrected her tightly as he rushed towards the exit to locate Pastel. When he poked his head out, she was long gone. Cursing mentally to himself, he returned to the others, loathing himself for making a grand mistake. He had acknowledged his daughter’s existence in front of Pastel! She now knew he had a child. This could be bad or...even worse. She now had information on him that no one else knew, not even his brother, and could use it against him by trickling it to the others. If they were still determined to make him pay, they might come after his Venetia instead and use her as bait.
The thought made him want to rupture into a rage infused rampage and cleave the store down from top to bottom. But his children were here and would witness his frenzy. He couldn’t have that. He was supposed to be a changed man now, a father! Those temper tantrums he used to have in the past that ended in bloodshed were just that...a thing of the past. To happen no more.
Clenching his tight fists, he feigned a bolstering smile to Renee, the store owner, who appeared ready to call security. “She came into the store rambling about nonsense while you were in the dressing room with my daughter. I didn’t pay her no mind until she came up to me asking me for money. I told her I didn’t have any, and yet she persisted in asking. I chose to ignore her. That’s why she was behind me when you came out of the dressing room.”
Renee placed a hand over her heart, impressed that this man didn’t make a scene but had instead handled the distressed woman with polite care. She smiled at him as she placed the phone down onto the receiver behind her counter. “Oh, Mr. Way! That was so kind of you to do! Forgive us, it’s hard to keep the homeless out sometimes. Some are more obvious than others to spot. Please, is there anything I can do to make this inconvenience up to you?”
Pleased he won her over, Poison waved off her apology and retrieved his wallet. “No, please, that’s alright. If you can wrap the dress up to perfection for my mother-in-law to view later, I would very much appreciate it.”
“Right this second, Mr. Way.” Renee promised him, swiping the debit card he handed to her.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Striding through the mall like a madwoman, Pastel ignored the stares she was garnering from the other people passing her by. She was wailing like she’d just witness an earth-shattering mishap, and in a way she did. She witnessed her own heart being broken.
She was pregnant and alone. Her baby daddy had expressed clearly that he wanted nothing to do with her or the child they conceived, but apparently had a child of his own with someone else that he was helping to raise!?
Since when did Poison have a goddamn child with another woman!?
Again, no one had ever mentioned that he had a child of his own. Not a single one of the Killjoys. Not Sable. Not even Kobra, his own brother!
Pastel needed answers, and she needed them now. Blotting the tears from her cheeks with the sleeve of her dark hoodie, she stumbled out of the Mall to the nearest bus stop. Her new destination was going to the only location that held those answers. She was headed back to the Killjoys and when she got there, she was gonna speak to Kobra face to face about this. She wasn’t going to take anymore of anyone else’s deception! Goddamnit, she wanted the truth, and by God, she was going to get the damn truth even if it meant she would have to draw blood to get it, one way or another!
Standing before her in a lengthy black coat over black jeans and a black shirt with his signature combat boots, Poison simply stared at her with indifference. From the way he looked no one would think he had said anything gruesome to her, but he had. She had marched far and wide to locate this man again after he renounced the Killjoy family and was eliminated off their radar by Kobra, their leader. It took patience she wasn’t capable of, and time she didn’t want to deplete to pinpoint him in the Mall today in some tailor store that didn’t appear like it ever had abundant traffic running through it with how barren it was. There was no one else around but them and some random little boy that had to have been deserted by his parents or something because he was unattended in the store with no other adult in sight.
Instead of reuniting with the man she loved and the father of her child, she was snubbed and treated like garbage. She had told Poison that she was pregnant. He didn’t care. She told him the child was theirs. He didn’t care. As badly as she wanted to refute this encounter and chalked it up as some imaginary nightmare she had fashioned up in her own delusional mind...Pastel didn’t think she could. Poison had made himself loud and clear. Her own ears were ringing from his response.
“And here we are, Mr. Way!” The owner of the store, Renee, sang as she stepped out of the changing room to sweep the curtain aside so the little girl could step out in all her splendor. “May I present to you, your little flower girl!”
Gerard’s face softened as he reeled around to face his little Venetia in the dress her grandmother had custom ordered for her by a renowned Panamanian designer to wear in her friend’s wedding as the flower girl. It was unlike any flower girl dress he’d ever seen, and it made him relieved that their bride had a conservative wedding dress, for the dress was inspired vastly by that very design. It was a long rose pink tulle dress that poofed out like a Princess’s dress would, and had a wine red lace pattern over the chest and stomach. Her hair was down and cascading over her shoulders as she smiled up at him and did a twirl for him to see, the hem of her dress sweeping up over her ankles. “Look, Daddy!”
Powerless to compose the extraordinary emotions mounting in him at seeing his little Princess look like a real-life Princess, Gerard swallowed past the lump in his throat and blinked the tears aside to gape at her. Pastel was a thing of the past, dying into the shadows as if she hadn’t ever existed in the first place. Stepping forward, he crouched down before Venetia, incapable of wiping the proud smile stretching wide across his face. “Oh, my little Princess, look at you indeed! I have never seen anyone so beautiful, Netia. Who needs a Disney Princess when I already have one of my very own?”
Wanting to know what all the commotion is about, Lorenzo shot out of the clothing rack he had been camping in and stepped past a woman garbed in dark shades to inspect. Looking his sister up and down in a dress, Lorenzo made a face at his dad, not understanding why he was marveling at her so much. Had she done something cool while he’d been playing and had missed it?
Standing in the background like a forgotten TV prop, Pastel felt the air escape her lungs, leaving her opening and closing her mouth like a fish to breath. That little girl had called Poison...daddy. Pastel didn’t understand why she said that. Her brain couldn’t cope with the notion that Poison possibly had children of his own. It wasn’t possible! She had been the only one with him this entire time!
Never, not even once, had Pastel ever heard of Poison fraternizing with another woman in or outside of Killjoy's various stations. So how on earth had he managed to father a whole living breathing child without her knowledge? It didn’t make sense! None of this made sense!
And yet, Pastel couldn’t rebuff what she was seeing with her own two eyes. All she had to do was look at the little girl to see for herself. Poison’s face was practically her face. They were identical twins except for the fact that her eyes were hazel to his light brown, and her chocolate hair was lighter than his black and lengthier. But it was undeniable that she was his. A person would have to be clinically insane not to see it, and Pastel wasn’t clinically insane.
Tilting her head to the side to scrutinize the child even further, Pastel couldn’t help but wonder if the baby growing inside her would look this much like it’s father. If this little girl could only be hers and Poison then maybe…
Feeling a tame hand on her arm, Pastel snapped her head to the right to see the owner looking at her with an easy smile. “Excuse me, my name is Renee, I’m the owner of this store. You must be the child’s mother.”
Pastel clamped over her mouth to impede the sob that burst forth from her lips at her inaccurate speculation. Muffling it, she twisted around unsteadily and darted through the exit of the store, trying her best not to make even more of a scene than she already did.
“Oh my!” Renee gasped, covering her hand over her mouth as she watched the woman flee from her store like she was going to have a breakdown. Her wide brown eyes turned to meet Mr. Way’s as she pointed in the direction the woman went. “Forgive me, Mr. Way! Your wife, she just ran out of the store!”
“She’s not my wife!” Gerard corrected her tightly as he rushed towards the exit to locate Pastel. When he poked his head out, she was long gone. Cursing mentally to himself, he returned to the others, loathing himself for making a grand mistake. He had acknowledged his daughter’s existence in front of Pastel! She now knew he had a child. This could be bad or...even worse. She now had information on him that no one else knew, not even his brother, and could use it against him by trickling it to the others. If they were still determined to make him pay, they might come after his Venetia instead and use her as bait.
The thought made him want to rupture into a rage infused rampage and cleave the store down from top to bottom. But his children were here and would witness his frenzy. He couldn’t have that. He was supposed to be a changed man now, a father! Those temper tantrums he used to have in the past that ended in bloodshed were just that...a thing of the past. To happen no more.
Clenching his tight fists, he feigned a bolstering smile to Renee, the store owner, who appeared ready to call security. “She came into the store rambling about nonsense while you were in the dressing room with my daughter. I didn’t pay her no mind until she came up to me asking me for money. I told her I didn’t have any, and yet she persisted in asking. I chose to ignore her. That’s why she was behind me when you came out of the dressing room.”
Renee placed a hand over her heart, impressed that this man didn’t make a scene but had instead handled the distressed woman with polite care. She smiled at him as she placed the phone down onto the receiver behind her counter. “Oh, Mr. Way! That was so kind of you to do! Forgive us, it’s hard to keep the homeless out sometimes. Some are more obvious than others to spot. Please, is there anything I can do to make this inconvenience up to you?”
Pleased he won her over, Poison waved off her apology and retrieved his wallet. “No, please, that’s alright. If you can wrap the dress up to perfection for my mother-in-law to view later, I would very much appreciate it.”
“Right this second, Mr. Way.” Renee promised him, swiping the debit card he handed to her.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Striding through the mall like a madwoman, Pastel ignored the stares she was garnering from the other people passing her by. She was wailing like she’d just witness an earth-shattering mishap, and in a way she did. She witnessed her own heart being broken.
She was pregnant and alone. Her baby daddy had expressed clearly that he wanted nothing to do with her or the child they conceived, but apparently had a child of his own with someone else that he was helping to raise!?
Since when did Poison have a goddamn child with another woman!?
Again, no one had ever mentioned that he had a child of his own. Not a single one of the Killjoys. Not Sable. Not even Kobra, his own brother!
Pastel needed answers, and she needed them now. Blotting the tears from her cheeks with the sleeve of her dark hoodie, she stumbled out of the Mall to the nearest bus stop. Her new destination was going to the only location that held those answers. She was headed back to the Killjoys and when she got there, she was gonna speak to Kobra face to face about this. She wasn’t going to take anymore of anyone else’s deception! Goddamnit, she wanted the truth, and by God, she was going to get the damn truth even if it meant she would have to draw blood to get it, one way or another!