Breaking Walls | ✓

Chapter 46: AWOL

Wilder

It had been a month since the homecoming dance and I hadn't seen anyone from that night again.

Driving away from the town was easy, now staying away was a whole different thing. 

The first week I had moved back to New York I just drank and partied to keep myself here but then things changed, everything got quieter and I started to enjoy that.

Damian had gotten arrested for a hit and run that was never reported because the bastard had paid everyone to keep it quiet. He was looking at some major time in jail but his parents were creative and rich. So they were trying their best to get him out or reduce his sentence.

Winters had started in New York and anytime now it would start snowing. I loved New York when it was covered in a clean sheet of white.

In the past month, I had received endless messages, calls and even emails from Colin and Kea. 

I had picked up, read or even opened; none.

They couldn't show up at my door because they didn't know where I was.

My 18th birthday was two weeks ago and I got a call from my mother's lawyer, it seemed that she had prepared a will stating all her assets were to be given to me when I would turn 18. 

The thing was I didn't know my mother had so much hidden away. She came from a wealthy family but she had left all that to marry my father. I didn't know she had generated so many assets on her own, until the lawyer showed me everything that she had left for me.

So I moved out of my father's house. It was time anyway, we were both getting on each other's nerves and his new wife was trying everything to play house. She was dumb enough to think she was replacing someone; someone she could never even hope to compare too. However, I appreciated the effort, it sickened me and I couldn't bare it any longer but I appreciated it.

And so I finally shifted into the house I was meant to live in, the house I grew up in, it was under my mothers' name which I had no idea about, but it was the happiest surprise I'd had in a while.

It was a beautiful castle-like country house in the Hamptons that my mother had gone to great lengths to make into a home. It was charming with traditional vintage furniture and a picturesque view of the lawns on all sides of the house. She would spend hours in the gardens when I was a kid.

The lawyer explained everything to me, all that was left along with a vineyard,  a boat and a couple of cars that I never knew existed.

My trust fund was a lot, so much that I would never have to ask my father for anything ever again.

So even Colin couldn't track me down, though I knew he was back in New York because my father's buildings doorman called me to let me know that Mr Davis had come to see me several times in the past two weeks.

When I moved back to the city after my first week of debauchery, I had kept a low profile, except my father no one knew where I was or that I was still here. 

I didn't want company and even though I spent most of my time alone I never let myself think about the night everything unravelled. I didn't know if the reason I didn't want to think about it was that I wasn't ready for it or just over it already, though I knew the possibility of the second one was next to impossible.

I didn't mind the quiet though, in all my life I hadn't had much quiet. I was afraid of being alone at first but then the more time I spent doing the things I always wanted to, the more I enjoyed it.

The only faces I saw around the house was of the housekeeper; Mrs.Hilda, the Gardener; Mathews and his son; Ryan who was a few years younger to me. Ryan's mom had passed away when he was 2. We had bonded quite a lot since I had moved in. He was a junior in a school here. We played soccer every evening, I had promised to get him ready to try out for his school team and he was getting pretty good. 

Ryan reminded me of Colin.

Hilda and Mathews had both been working for my family since before I was born, Mrs Hilda used to take care of me when my parents were out for business trips.

Mathews taught me how to play ball, ride a bike, even how to ride my motorcycle. He even went with Colin and me to pick my Harley up and helped me make all the adjustments.

Safe to say after mom they were my family and so it wasn't as lonely anymore. I was fine. I finally felt at home.

My mother loved these people. 

Living here made me feel closer to her and after the year I'd had I could use some of her warmth.

I spent most of my time either painting or working around the house. The house had been neglected for too long but thanks to Mathews and Hilda all my mothers' dear things were just how she left them. Some of the clothes left in her cupboard still had her smell, I didn't go there much though, it was too hard, missing her. 

It was easier to get lost.

After my parents got divorced neither one of them lived here, they both moved to other houses in the city, Dad moved in with another woman and mom got sicker.

But this house reminded me of the happy times we had here, the times we were a family and that's the only way I wanted to remember them.

Staying away from all the chaos also gave me time to think about my future.

I had been working out my college applications, I knew I had to go back to Kea's town to give my SAT, I was still enrolled there and a last-minute transfer would be great because I would never have to see her again but it was unnecessary so I let it remain, plus prep leave was going on and I only had to go for my exams so it wouldn't be so bad.

I was thinking of taking a year off and travelling then starting college or just studying in another country.

I wanted to eventually start my own business but before everything, I wanted to see the works of the world.

When I thought about travelling I thought of Kea and Colin, there was no doubt that I missed them, they were a major part of my life and maybe in time I would forgive them but that would only happen if I could forget that Kea never told me about her pregnancy and Colin kept it from me even when he knew about it.

But I tried not to think about it, only on the present.

Once I had settled into the house I went back to the town to get all my stuff from Grandfathers house, I had taken the Range Rover, a luxury that was in my name along with a few other fancy cars that would have made Colin drool if he had been there.

I went in the middle of the night to avoid the risk of bumping into anyone. I drove past Kea's house so fast, I could have blinked it out of existence.

I entered the house, trying not to pay attention to everything that had happened here, but somehow Kea's presence was more eminent than ever before. I could smell the rain in the air and the hair on the back of my head stood up. I walked to my room but I couldn't shake off the feeling that Kea had been here very recently. 

When I opened the door, there on my bed, curled up, lay Kea, deep asleep. Her hair splayed over my pillows, her slumbering body under my covers. She wasn't aware of me but ghost bumps broke out all over my body.

I wanted to lay next to her, wake her up with a kiss, fall asleep with her in my arms, make love to her but everything she had done, all she had knowingly kept from me; kept me from going to her and doing all those things.

I just turned around and left. I could always get my stuff later or send people to get it but if I hadn't gotten out when I did, a few more minutes in her sleeping, rainy presence and my resolution would have shattered.

It took me a few days to get past seeing Kea in my bed. Staying away was harder than ever. But then Mathews told me it was Mrs.Hilda's birthday next week and I wanted to do something nice for her so I decided to throw her a party, after much reluctance she agreed and sent out the invites as I called in for the catering and decoration and got myself busy.