Memories Won't Let Me Cry

I stood in the doorway to the living room in shock as everyone turned to look at me, their eyes wide and jaws dropped. Memphis looked guilty and glanced apologetically at Matt before turning to face me again.

I locked eyes with Matt and saw the guilt there on his face, as well as hurt, and felt my heart start to pound.

"M-Matt?" My voice trembled on his name. "What's she talking about?"

The air was thick with tension as he started to walk towards me, his hand visibly shaking as he raised it to run through his hair.

"Lyndsey, let's go home and talk about this, okay?"

"No." I said with a shake of my head. "No, I want you to tell me right now. What is your sister talking about? I mean," I puffed out a breath that was supposed to be like a laugh. "You and Val don't have a kid…right?"

He avoided my eyes, his jaw clenched tight.

"Oh my God." Tears filled my eyes and I took a step away from him. "Y-you cheated on me?"

His eyes snapped up to mine and he shook his head vigorously. "No. No, Lyndsey, I never cheated on you, and I never would. You have to believe me…" He sighed and rubbed his head again before glancing at the guys. "Can't we just go home and talk about this?"

I shook my head slowly, feeling my insides go numb with pain at what I was about to hear. "No. No, I'm not going anywhere with you, so you better start talking. What does it matter to them, anyway?" I scoffed, shooting daggers at the guys, who hung their heads and avoided my eyes. "They obviously knew about it."

Matt sighed heavily and took a step closer. "Val was already pregnant when she and I broke up, and she never told me until…shit, I think Blake was six months old when she told me."

Blake.

He had a son.

He already had a son, and I lost mine.

This news tore through my heart, breaking it in two inside my chest.

"You have a son." I murmured. "You have a son, and you never told me." I sucked in a breath and fought to keep my control. "Why?"

"What?"

"Why didn’t you tell me?" I practically whispered the question and when he didn’t answer right away, I shouted it at him. "Why the fuck didn’t you tell me, Matt?"

"I couldn’t." He mumbled, his head down as if he was afraid to look at me.

"You couldn't." I was confused. "How the hell could you not tell me that you have a kid? Do you see him? Does he know about you?"

Matt nodded. "Yeah, I see him once a week."

I huffed and turned to walk away, running my hand stressfully through my hair, before walking back when Matt started talking to me.

"Lynds, I didn’t tell you at first because I didn’t know how you would handle it. We had only been together for a little while, and I didn’t want to lose you. And I've wanted to tell you all along, but…the longer I left it, the harder it got."

"So you were just going to wait until he showed up one day? Or until someone slipped and mentioned him in front of me?" I didn’t give him a chance to answer before I was asking another question. "How many people knew, anyway?" I asked and looked at the guys.

"We all knew." Zacky said, his hands being gripped by Corie's. "And Matt's family, and all our friends."

"So everyone knew, but me." I shook my head in disbelief, at the ultimate betrayal. "You really wanted me to look like an idiot, didn’t you?"

"No-" Matt tried to say but Brian stepped forward, putting his hand on his friend's shoulder.

"It wasn't about that, Lyndsey." Brian said quietly. "We never meant to hurt you, and we've all tried to help Matt in telling you. But we all agreed to keep it quiet, keep our mouths shut, until he found the right time to tell you."

"So you just lied to me?" I cried, tears finally spilling down my cheeks. "You've all been lying to me for the past three years, when each and every one of you has sworn that I'm your girl, and that you would always be there for me?"

Johnny looked terrified as he sat with a girl I'd never seen in my life, who also looked scared and uncomfortable. Zacky and Jimmy looked ready to cry, and Corie was crying, along with Memphis.

"You guys are my friends, too." I practically whispered. "How could you do that to me?"

"We're sorry." Zacky murmured and I scoffed.

"Bullshit. If you were that sorry, you would have done something about it."

Brian took a step towards me, looking teary himself. "Lyndsey, please-"

"You're my best friend, Brian. How could you keep something like this from me? Especially after everything that I've told you today?"

He clenched his jaw shut and lowered his head again.

"What are you talking about?" Matt asked, looking from me to Brian in worry. "Lynds, what's going on?"

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Wouldn’t you like to know?"

He sighed heavily. "Come on, don't do that."

"Don't do what?" I spread my arms wide as I shot out the question. "Keep something from you? You've been doing that for three years, Matt; you're one to talk."

"I'm sorry, okay?" He practically screamed at me, and I took a startled step back as Brian looked at him with wide eyes. "I'm fucking sorry. What else do you want?"

I was crying openly now, lines of tears running down my cheeks. I thought I was finished crying after all that I'd done in the past few hours, but apparently not.

I tried to speak, to say something, but the words were caught in my throat and I closed my eyes with a strangled cry as I stumbled back to lean against the wall.

"Lyndsey…baby, I'm sorry." Matt's voice was quieter now, and sounded choked to my ears as he came closer to me. "I wish that I had told you sooner, I wish that this wasn't hurting you…I'd never want to hurt you on purpose. I love you, Lyndsey."

"You can't love me that much if you kept something like this from me."

"What?" He sounded shocked and I raised tear-filled eyes to his, to see he was crying, too. "Lynds…how can you say that? After everything we've been through-"

"Don't talk to me about what we've been through." I snapped. "Don't even…do you know how guilty I've felt? Do you know how…horrible I've been feeling for the past year, thinking that I had lost your first baby? Feeling like a failure because I couldn’t handle the death of my father, thinking that I let you down in not being able to have your first child? But oops, silly me," I chided sarcastically. "You already had one."

He was shaking his head at me, the tears on his cheeks glinting in the light. "It's not like that, Lyndsey."

"No?" I sniffed. "Then what is it like?"

"I may have had a kid already with Val, but the fact that you were carrying my baby meant more. It wouldn't have been my first baby, but it would have been my first family."

I shook my head. "That doesn’t mean anything."

He sighed and wiped his cheeks. "I don’t know what else to say to you."

I huffed. "You have no idea…no fucking idea how I've been feeling since we lost Christian. Like a failure, like I'm not good enough-"

"No, baby, don't say that-"

"And just when I was starting to think that things could better, you drop this on me." I shook my head as fresh tears found their way down my cheeks. "How could you? How could you do that to me?"

"Baby, I'm sorry."

He reached out to hold me, to take me in his arms, but I shoved him back, slamming my fists and arms against his chest until he finally stepped back.

"Don't touch me." I shrieked as the guys took steps forward, as if they were anticipating something.

"Wh-what?" He stammered. "Baby-"

"Don't, Matt." I pleaded, sobs wracking my body. "Just…p-please don't."

He stood there, less than a foot away, watching helplessly as I broke down and raised my hands to press them against my head, gripping handfuls of my hair as I cried, feeling utterly and completely broken inside.

Something inside me shifted, low in my belly, feeling like a small, uncomfortable twinge, and I cried out in surprise, my hand immediately going to my stomach as I hunched over in fear.

Oh God, please…please no…

"Lyndsey?" Matt was there, along with Brian and Memphis, and all three of them were trying to talk to me.

"What's wrong, babygirl?" Brian asked.

"Just give her some space, guys." Memphis ordered shakily.

I couldn't breathe; it felt like something was grabbing me by the throat, squeezing the life out of me and I knew if I didn't leave, get away, I was going to lose it.

Pushing away from the wall, I burst through them and ran to the door, grabbing my purse and keys as I went, ignoring the seven voices screaming my name.

"Lyndsey, stop!" Matt screamed, following me out the door.

I tripped and stumbled down the walkway, my breaths coming in quick short gasps as I fought to unlock my car.

"Baby, don’t leave…"

I ignored him and jumped in my car, jamming the key in the ignition so I could back out of the driveway.

I looked up at Matt as he stood there in the driveway, hands clasped behind his head as he openly cried and watched me drive way.

I had to get away.

Matt's POV

I watched Lyndsey back out a drive away, watched until her car disappeared down the street before I was finally able to move. I turned and walked stonily into the house, feeling empty inside.

All talk stopped as I came in and all eyes were on me. Memphis, her eyes red and cheeks streaked from crying, stepped towards me with a sniff.

"Matt, I-"

"She's gone." I said, my voice devoid of all emotion.

"Gone?" Brian questioned sharply, taking a few steps forward to stand a foot away from me. "What do you mean, gone?"

"I mean gone." I said tiredly, running has hands over my face and through my hair. "I tried to stop her, but she just got in her car and drove away."

Brian made a sound of frustration and grabbed his cell phone from his pocket, flipping it open and pressing a number before putting the phone to his ear. Moments latter, somewhere in the room, Seize the Day could be heard and we all looked to see Lyndsey's cell phone sitting on the table by the door. She hadn't taken it with her.

"Fuck." Brian muttered, tossing the cell onto the coffee table.

"Why don't you go after her?" Johnny asked, rubbing the back of the girl sitting beside him, who's name was Katie. She must be so confused and uncomfortable, I thought vaguely.

"He doesn’t know where she went." Jimmy said simply.

"So? He could have just jumped in his car and-"

"And what?" Zacky asked irritably. "Drive around Huntington Beach, looking for her car? Do you know how many Protégé's there are on the road, Johnny? He'd never find her."

"I can't believe this." Brian muttered with disgust and worry before turning hard eyes on me. "You did this."

"What?"

"You did this." Brian repeated nastily. "All of this is your fault. If you would have just told her the truth, like we've all been begging you from the beginning, we wouldn't be here right now, and Lynds wouldn't have run off to God knows where, to do God knows what to herself." He stalked to the front door before coming back. "Why the fuck couldn't you just tell her, Matt?"

"I don't know." I said quietly, beginning to pace in front of the others, passing by my sister with lowered eyes. "I don't…I wish now that I had."

Brian huffed. "That does a lot of good for us now, genius."

"I'm sure she's fine." Zacky said hesitantly, even as he chewed on his bottom lip. "She's probably just…driving around."

Brian looked ready to say something, but then he thought better of it and stomped off to the kitchen. He came back with a bottle of beer and I narrowed his eyes at him.

"What are you doing?"

"Scared I'm going to hit the bottle again, asshole?" He sneered, popping off the cap. "Don't worry about me; you should be worrying about where your girlfriend is-"

"You know what, Syn?" I snapped, feeling the rage and anguish build to a breaking point. "You don’t know jack about it, so shut the fuck up."

"I don't know anything about it?" Brian raged, pointing to himself. "I don't know anything? Let me tell you something, buddy, I probably know more about how your girlfriend has been feeling for the past year than you do because guess what? Every time she felt the need to cry, every time she thought she was going to break, she came to me. She came to talk to me, not you, and want to know why? Huh?" Take a step forward, Brian raised his voice in anger. "Because she was too scared and ashamed to fucking talk to you. She always thought, no matter how much I told her differently, that she would be a burden to you, or a pain in the ass, because you were always busy doing your thing, hanging with us, going to the studio…but little did she know that half of the time, when you said you were going somewhere, you were lying. You were going to see your son, who she never knew about and now…now you could have fucked up the best thing that ever happened to you."

My heart constricted in fear but I shook my head, trying to hold back tears. "We can work this out."

Brian laughed humorlessly. "Right. Because it's going to be so easy for her to trust you now."

"It's not like I cheated on her-"

"No, but you lied. You've been lying to her for the past three years, Matt. Think it will be so easy for her to trust you again? I sure as hell don't."

I rolled my eyes. "Whatever. Just go back to drinking your beer, and let me worry about my girlfriend."

Memphis gasped and Brian narrowed his eyes at me, but I didn't care.

"Dude…" Jimmy started to speak but I shook my head at him and started walking to the door.

"Where are you going?" My sister called out to me.

"Don't fucking walk away from me." Brian growled.

"I don't need to listen to this-"

"Yes, you do need to listen to this, and you fucking will!" Brian shouted, grabbing my arm and yanking me back, shoving me into the wall.

I clenched my jaw and shoved Brian backwards. "Don’t push me, Syn."

"I'll do whatever the fuck I want, asshole." He countered, shoving me into the wall again.

Oh, this guy was really asking for it.

"Guys, come on, let's not-" Zacky tried to intervene, coming forward to stand by us.

"So you want to kick my ass over this, Syn?" I taunted, spreading my arms wide. "You want to rip me a new asshole for what I did to Lyndsey? Go ahead, go for it."

Brian was shaking his head and backed away a few steps before coming back.

"She feels like a failure, you know." He said quietly and I frowned.

"What? What the hell are you talking about?"

"Lyndsey told me today that she feels like a failure because she lost what she thought was your first child. She thinks that she let you down, and that you're disappointed in her or some shit because she couldn’t carry the baby, and she's scared she's going to lose you." He sighed heavily and shook his head. "Look, Matt…I don't want to kick your ass, you're my best friend. But so is she, and if she does something to herself because of all this-"

"She won't." Jimmy said vehemently. "She promised, she promised each and every one of us that she would never do that again and she won’t."

"Why couldn't she tell me any of that?" I asked quietly, my voice shaking, ignoring what was going on as Johnny and his girlfriend left. I guess he didn’t want her to hear any of this. "Why
couldn’t she just tell me that?"

"Because she thinks she's a pain in the ass, and she seems to believe that every single time something bad happens it's because of her." Brian informed me, and my heart broke.

"How could she think that?" Corie asked with a shake of her head, sniffing a little through her tears.

"I don't know. But I don't know if she'll ever forgive us for this." Brian said with a sigh and ran his hand through his hair.

I stared down at the floor, my eyes welling with tears and I didn't care. These guys were my best friends, I didn't care if they saw me cry; they'd seen me at my worst dozens of times already.

"What am I going to do?" I asked gruffly. "What am I going to do if something happens to her and it's all my fault?"

I slid down the wall to sit there, my head in my hands as Brian knelt in front of me, his hands on my shoulders.

"She'll be okay." He murmured unconvincingly.

"What are you guys talking about?" Memphis asked and we all looked at her, forgetting that she didn't know everything that had happened. "What could Lyndsey do to herself?"

I stared at my sister as Brian took a deep breath and said quietly, "After she lost the baby…Lyndsey started cutting."