There she was, slogging through the sideways rain with her head down.  I could spot those legs of hers anywhere.  A hundred years could have passed and my brain would still have remembered exactly how she was made.

I flashed my headlamps at her and pulled up beside the pavement.

She lifted her head in surprise as her eyes went wide.

I pushed open the passenger door.

“Get in.”

She just stood there, her rain soaked hair plastered against her face, challenging me.

“Did you call my mother, Neil?”

“I did indeed, now get in the car,” I barked, ready to jump out and drag her in if I had to.

“That was stupid of you, then,” she yelled, throwing her arm out.

“Not nearly as stupid as walking home in a torrential rainstorm in the middle of the goddamn bloody night!”

She turned away and started walking again.

I saw red and it was all reaction after that.  The Rover was up on the pavement blocking her path and she was looking at me like she wanted to slice off my balls and feed them to her pet alligator.  “What is the matter with you, Neil?” she screeched.

“Right now, it’s your stubbornness,” I bit out.  I pointed to the empty seat.  “Now get your defiant arse into the MOTHERFUCKIN’ SEAT OF MY CAR!”

She did it.

The interior of the Rover was silent except for the pounding of the rain.  The earthy smell of water filled the air and mixed with the scent of her hair and wet coat.  I think we were both in shock.

I’m sure I’d never shouted so loudly before to any person.  These extreme emotions were starting to get to me.  I was the guy who kept his cool and a level head.  I didn’t even recognize myself anymore.

I looked over at Elaina sitting beside me, her arms folded across her chest, hair dripping, eyes straight ahead, and so utterly beautiful even in this bedraggled state, that it hurt to have her so close.  It hurt because she was still so far away from me and I didn’t know how to make her let me back in.

Her mobile rang from inside her coat pocket.  She rolled her eyes as she pulled it out and answered the call.

“Yes, Mum.  I’m with Neil right now and he’s bringing me home.”  She paused listening.  “I’ll tell him.  Okay.  Bye.”

I couldn’t imagine what she was thinking.  She wasn’t talking and she wasn’t fighting me either, she just sat there in the front seat of my Rover, so very still.

I reached over her for the belt to buckle her in and could see she was shivering.

“You’re cold.”  I cranked up the heat and backed off the pavement, straightening out the wheels and parking it up against the curb.  The windscreen wipers methodically passed back and forth between us.

“M-mum w-wants you to s-stay for dinner,” she chattered blankly, still staring forward out into the dark rainy night.

But what about you, Elaina?

“I’m sorry for screaming at you,” I said softly.

I wished she’d look at me, but she wouldn’t…or couldn’t after our terrible shouting match.

And so, I just sat there and watched her, the heater inside the car working overtime, making the air warmer by the minute.

“It’s okay,” she said finally, wiping one side of her face with her fingers.  Was she crying?

“Elaina…look at me, please.”  I waited while time seemed to slow down to a crawl.

She turned her head toward me, her chin up and trembling like she was guarding herself from falling apart.

“I didn’t know you worked there.  I wouldn’t have taken the job if I’d known.  They tricked me into applying, and I just don’t want you to think I did this on purpose—”

I cut her emotional ramble off with two fingers to her lips.  “I know.  I know it was them and not you.  Don’t you worry about it.”

She froze when I touched her, looking fragile enough to shatter at any second.

I dropped my hand away, but I didn’t want to.  I wanted to run it around the back of her neck and draw her up against me.  I still wanted her.  Despite everything that had happened between us, all of the betrayal and abandonment—my heart just didn’t care about any of it.  She was here.  My Cherry Girl was here right beside me.

18

Neil drove me home.  I was numb and it wasn’t from the cold rain.  Subdued was a good word to describe how we both were after that blow up on the pavement.  I’d never seen Neil lose his temper like that.  So angry.  He’d driven his car up onto the pavement for Christ’s sake.

He pulled into the drive of my house and I found the courage to ask him.

“Are you coming in?  Mum wants you to stay.”

He turned and met me head on, his big hands still gripping the steering wheel.  “What about you, Elaina?  Do you want me to stay?”

“Well, is it—is it all right for you to be here?”

He looked puzzled by my question.

“What?”

He wasn’t going to make this easy on me apparently.  I swallowed and went for it.

“Are you married?”

His eyes widened for an instant.  “Come again?”

“Don’t make me ask that again, please.”

He paused for a minute before responding, as if he really needed to choose the right words.  “I’m going to chalk that one up to the fact you’re not yourself right now.  You’re soaked through to the skin, and we’ve had a row that’s upset both of us—but did you just ask me if I’m married?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

He scoffed and shook his head, looking away from me now and out the window.  “No.  I’m not married.”

“So you and Cora didn’t stay together?”

He flipped back toward me.  “Umm, no,” he said slowly, shaking his head again, his lips slightly parted.

“Why didn’t you, Neil?”

“I didn’t want to, Elaina.”

Fear had started to bloom in the pit of my stomach and I suddenly felt ice cold again.  “But the b-baby…I saw Cora after you left.  She was pregnant and showing.  I saw with my own eyes.”  While Neil sat glaring at me, a thought rushed through my mind.  Oh no.  “Did she lose it?”

“No, she didn’t lose it.  She had a son.”  Neil had turned away again, as if he couldn’t stand the sight of me.  He was answering my questions while speaking to the window and looking out at the rain.

“Oh.  What’s his name?”

“I don’t know.  I only saw him one time and she didn’t tell me.”

“You don’t—you don’t see your son?”  This wasn’t the man that I knew.  I didn’t understand any of this.  Why didn’t he see his son or even know his name?

He turned back to me once more and told me why, his eyes full of sadness I could read clearly even from the dim light inside his car.  “I don’t see him because he is not mine.”

I shuddered as a chill rushed through my whole body and froze me.  I was speechless for a moment, unable to speak, afraid to look at him.  Terrified for what else I’d see in his eyes.

I don’t see him because he is not mine.

“But—but she said—I saw you with the doctor scan…You never denied it…

I don’t see him because he is not mine.

“I wrote you a letter.  I told you I understood why you had to be with Cora…”

Neil didn’t react at first.  He just looked at me, his expression growing darker and darker as understanding dawned for both of us.  I realized why he was so angry.

I don’t see him because he is not mine.

“Oh, God.”  I slammed a hand over my mouth, trying to quiet the rising panic flooding me.

As if that would work.

Involuntary reactions, nothing more.

He still hadn’t said anything.  Neil was letting me do all the talking, giving me plenty of rope to hang myself on.

“If he wasn’t your baby, then why…why didn’t you say something?  You let me go and didn’t tell me…Neil—please say this wasn’t all for nothing.”

I could feel the hysteria letting loose.  The truth dawning on me with such brutal force I could barely breathe.

I don’t see him because he is not mine.

He leaned in very close and grabbed me by the shoulders, forcing me to own up to my horrifying mistake, gripping tightly and shaking me a little with every sharp bite of each word he spoke.

“Why did you leave without ever giving me a chance to tell you anything?  You just left me there on the eve of my deployment.  You let me go.  Didn’t you love me enough to even listen at all, Elaina?  Was I not worth even that much to you?”