Swallowing hard, I look up into her sad eyes. “That’s all I’m telling you, Addison. The rest . . . you’re just going to have to trust me that it has nothing to do with us . . . with you and me.”
I watch as her face scrunches in disappointment, and I internally cringe. “It has everything to do with you and me.”
She walks to the front door, her hand on the knob. “So that’s it? You don’t get your way so you’re going to bail. Leave me. Leave us? Megan went to her grave asking me to protect her. You want me to break the trust she had in me?”
Her head falls forward as her hand slips off the metal doorknob. Looking over her shoulder there are tears falling down her cheeks and a sad smile on her face. “Considering I have no idea what role Megan played in your life, who she was or why you have this dying need to protect her and her daughter, yeah, I don’t understand why you won’t let me in. Megan’s dead, Damian. I’m not.”
She opens the door, and the room gets considerably cooler. In three strides, I’m standing behind her, my hand on the door gently shutting it. “Please don’t leave.”
The sound of the closing door is the only noise in my quiet apartment, and we’re both facing it, her back to my front. My hands gently come down on her shoulders and I pull her back to embrace her.
Turning, she places distance between us. “I have to.”
I won’t cry. I won’t cry. A tear falls down my cheek. Dammit, I am not going to cry! Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath as I sit in front of my computer screen. Damian’s name is typed into Google, all I have to do is hit enter. It feels as if I’m invading his privacy, but I have to protect myself.
With a racing heart and a sick feeling in my gut, I press down on the enter key. Hundreds of articles and photos appear, mostly of Extreme Mindlessness. I click on the first one.
“Damian Walker, son of Brazilian soccer great Andre Revilino launches home workout program, Extreme Mindlessness, with college roommate Harry Reed.”
“Damian Walker and Harry Reed make Forbes top 100 companies of 2013.”
On and on the articles go about Damian and Reed, and I realize I need to limit my search. I type in Damian Walker and Megan Jones.
Nothing comes up.
I try Damian Walker and car accident. Again, my screen is filled with hundreds of articles.
“An unidentified female died today in a car accident involving Damian Walker, son of soccer great, Andre Revilino. Sources claim the two were exclusively dating. The accident is still being investigated.”
“Damian Walker cleared of all wrongdoing in accident that killed rumored girlfriend whose name has still not been released.”
“Jeremy Silvers’ blood alcohol level three times above the legal limit when he crashed head on into Damian Walker’s Audi R8, killing the soccer star’s rumored girlfriend on impact. Her name has not been revealed to the media.”
My gut gets that uh-oh feeling. The one that tells you something isn’t right. If she were his girlfriend, someone would have known her name and spilled it to reporters immediately. It’s impossible to keep that kind of information hidden. How could Damian have kept her identity a mystery from all those reporters, and more importantly, why did he have to? What is so special about Megan Jones that Damian doesn’t want anyone to know she ever existed in the first place?
I hit on images and instantly regret it. The Damian being shown in these photos is not my Damian. He looks sick, too thin, and ashen, as if his entire world has come crashing down. The pictures span years of his life, and it’s clear which ones were shot in the three years following the accident, the years Thomas keeps throwing in his face. Damian was a tortured soul at one point in his life, and maybe he still is. But we all have our demons.
Sleep evades me all night. A multitude of scenarios as to what Damian and Megan could possibly be hiding runs through my brain, making me go almost crazy. Part of me is guilty I searched out information on the web, another part angry that I had to, but mostly I feel sad there is a piece of his life that damaged him so deeply he blames himself for another human being’s