Someone I Used to Know - By Blakney Francis Page 0,110

wish love was enough. I could love you until there was nothing of me left, until I was reduced to nothing more than pencil shavings and old scraps of paper. You deserve more than that though.

My sweet, beautiful daughter, in your sunflower, yellow dress, one day I hope you’ll understand.

As I stare down at you, I know the truth. I see you swathed in happiness, bathed in the love of your parents, and I know this is right. This is where you’re supposed to be. This is your home, just another thing I cannot give you.

There is one thing I can give you though, something that is already yours, even if you don’t know it.

There is someone you deserve to know. I can already see so much of her in you. She’s in the sharpness of your eyes and the gentle sigh of your breath.

She was a ballerina, and sometimes when she danced, I forgot to breathe. She had all the wrong kinds of strength, and the kind of beauty she always forgot to appreciate. She was smart and funny, if you knew the right way to look at her jokes. She loved sleeping late and being right. She loved the beach at night; candy that turned her mouth red; and her family…

But most of all, more than anything else in the world, she loved you.

Her name was Adley Adair, and she was your mother.

Little girl in the yellow dress, this is the story of how much she loved you.

I wasn’t the girl in the yellow dress. I never had been.

The truth had been there all along. What sweet irony that I’d spent so much time thinking the world didn’t know anything about me at all, when they’d known the story better than myself.

Cam had seen her, touched her; maybe, even held her. He’d broken his promise. Jealousy burned like sandpaper against my raw skin. He had the strength to walk away.

I’d been wrong.

I let the knowledge wash over. I was wrong.

I waited for it to bite me, to sting me with shame…

But all I felt was exhilaration, freedom; the texture of air exploding in my lungs. It was relief. It felt like I’d been holding my breath for years, weighed down underwater by the pressure tied to my feet. For the first time since I’d found out I was pregnant, I could breathe again.

Cam had made his own decision. He did what he had to do, whether it was for the best or would cause him pain. He had honored our daughter, not by achieving his dreams, but by allowing the past to become a part of him. All I had done was wallow inside an unmoving bubble for three years.

Cam’s words, hidden in plain sight all this time, and the truth stored within them, had come from Declan. Even without speaking a word, thousands of miles away, he could still make me come back to him.

It wasn’t my turn to make decisions anymore. I’d lost all credibility. It was my turn to feel, to act…to go home.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Declan

Nothing about California was as I remembered it. I’d only been gone three months, but the colors had dulled, the air soured, and the sun was an obvious imposter of the one the Beach Boys had waxed lyrically about. I couldn’t even blame the neighborhood. Even the most kept-up parts of Los Angeles had looked droll as I’d ridden past.

My car jerked to a stop, and I cringed, biting my tongue to keep from cursing the driver. I wasn’t too keen on the new bloke, but Lazarus was busy on another job. The partition cracked, and the grey haired driver peered at me through the rearview mirror. Speculation arched his eyebrows.

“Are you sure this is the right address, Mr. Davies?”

I looked out at the rundown streets and overrun lawns; a crimson door stood out amongst the browns and rusting metals. I smiled.

“Yep, this is it.”

I left my hat and sunglasses in the car. There wouldn’t be any paparazzi lurking about there.

It took two knocks for the red door to fling open. A child stared back at me from the shadowed doorway, her excitement over having a guest fading into suspicion after she’d completed a head-to-toe inspection of my expensive jeans and button-up shirt. Her eyes landed on my face unimpressed.

“Who are you?” she demanded with familiar sauciness.

I grinned, and opened my mouth to answer her.

“Casey, who’s at the door?” A voice I knew shouted from somewhere deep in the house. My