With Everything I Won't Let This Go

“Oh my God. Frank!?”

“Jenah? Oh my God it’s been years! Well, fifteen to be exact!”

Fifteen years?

The pair hugged and the girl Frank had called Jenah brushed the hair from her glossed lips. I looked towards Jamia, who looked confused and hurt that Frank had never mentioned a Jenah. She just wandered away to a different part of the store, picking at some necklaces whilst Jenah and Frank caught up with each other.

They just talked for ages, so I went over to talk to Jamia. I hadn’t spoken to her the whole trip, so I thought it was time I got to know my friends wife. Because she always seemed to mellow and laid back and so cool.

“Hey,” I smiled.

“Hello,” she said back, not looking at me.

My smile faltered slightly but I continued to be nice and social.

“How are you?” I asked, not able to come up with anything else.

“Fine. Yourself?” she replied, looking round and flashing a quick, forced smile.

“I’m fab thanks. I like your top.”

“Oh thanks,” she smiled, properly this time, and looking round at me and fiddling with it. “I got it at some shop in Pennsylvania when we stopped. I like your hair,” she smiled again.

“Oh, thanks,” I smiled, blushing a little. No one had ever complimented my hair before.

We stood talking for a bit, me liking her more and her appearing to like me more. I guess you could say we became friends.

Frank and Jenah came over, smiling and exchanging the odd memory, and Jamia seemed to harden up again. Jenah looked at me and her eyes widened.

“Whoa! It’s like looking at a photograph from seventeen years ago!” she exclaimed.

This puzzled me, and seeing Frank pale slightly just confused me more. Looking at Jamia, I saw she was confused too. She looked at me for assistance and I shrugged, feeling as confused as she looked.

“W-W-What?” Frank stammered.

Jenah’s smile faded slightly and she looked at Frank with a bit of a frown. She grabbed his sleeve and pulled him over to the underwear section and began whispering to him angrily. I excused myself from Jamia politely, and slunk over quietly to be a nosy bitch.

“You didn’t tell them? How could you keep something like that as a secret!? How could you never tell that little girl about Loryn? Loryn was an amazing person and you just bury her memory with her body? And your wife? Do you know what you’ve done to your marriage by not telling that woman? Jeez, Frank, growing up made you an idiot!”

What was she talking about. When Jenah walked away from him and started scowling. I looked at Frank questioningly but he just shook his head and wandered to the male customers toilets.

“What?” I asked myself, feeling suddenly in the dark.

***
Mikey watched the girl. She was as beautiful as her mom had been at that age. God he’d loved Loryn. That one kiss was his most proudest and most fondest memory of her. And now this child, Loryn’s child, was her unbroken legacy.

The girl mumbled something in her sleep and tossed once more, a frown on her face and her bottom lip quivering only slightly. She was having a bad dream - the bad dream. Mikey didn’t know; he thought it was a teen nightmare. He didn’t know that somewhere in the teens subconscious, lay the beaten face of a nineteen year old mother and the shadowed face of a twenty year old father and his companions.

She didn’t know either.

Laurie thought it was something her mind had invented years ago. She didn’t know it was her first memory. She didn’t know that she’d been living a lie. She didn’t know her mother was her aunt and her father was her uncle. She didn’t know her father had visited her everyday and been there all along, in secret.

It cut Mikey up knowing what this would do to her. Alicia had expressed her concerns, in tears of course, and his heart had melted as it had done so many times before with Loryn and… Cariad.

His eyes welled up thinking about his second proper love. His child’s mother. If she’d been concentrating while driving instead of trying to comfort her best friend, she’d be alive and Bella would be healthier.

His phone buzzed in his jacket pocket, startling him with a gasp. Laurie stirred and his heart started beating rapidly. He got up and ran to the studio, praying no one was in. Only Frank and his dreams lay there. He seemed to be spending every night in the studio now.

“Hey, honey. It’s-” He checked his watch, seeing it was one am. It would be two am in eastern America. “It’s two am. Why aren’t you asleep?”

He still found himself smiling, though.

“Because I’m off tomorrow for a twelve thirty check up at hospital and I miss you, daddy.”

Mikey’s eyes welled up. After fifteen years, it still got him right there. He smiled a watery smile, pride oh so evident in his every feature. He loved his daughter with all his heart and more; he sometimes wondered how he had any left for Alicia at all. But Bella was glad he did.

“Okay. Do you want me to tell you a story, honey pot?” he whispered fatherly.

“Yeah, but just a short one. Gramma Donna says I should be in bed by half past. She’s a great Gramma, just like you said Gramma Helena was!”

That still got him too. He missed Grandma Elena. Gerard did too. He sometimes heard his older brother crying at night, wishing his best friend and Grandmother hadn’t passed away. Years had gone by and it still ached with every memory.

“Okay, baby. There once was a pretty little girl. She grew up to be just eighteen years old, and found her prince charming. She always gushed at his shyness and he blushed at her pretty eyes. When they grew older, their parents suggested they get married, and they did! They had a beautiful baby girl who was perfect. And they all lived happily ever after…” Mikey said, choking on his last words.

“Aw, daddy, that was a beautiful one. You should tell that one more often!” his child replied happily.

Mikey nodded and agreed. If only that story was reality. Maybe he wouldn’t feel so guilty sleeping next to Alicia every night, despite being head over heals in love with the woman. If only death was a lie.
***