fantasty kiss, raj say hello [bill gates best books .TXT] 📗

what I needed right now. He wanted to help? That’s what I wanted. To forget.
“I want to leave, papa.” I muttered. “I want a fresh start.”
I didn’t open my eyes to see his expression and I didn’t think I wanted to. Though I could hear him sitting there, hear his light breathing above the monitors I was connected to.
Finally, after a moment, he spoke.
“Okay, bud. I’ll make the arrangements.”

  Chapter Forty Nine

My carryon bag was packed, the rest of my belonging packaged and shipped off already. The only thing left in my room were the rails that once held my bed. It seemed smaller, colder now that the space was bare.
The entire house seemed that way. With the furniture gone, walls bare, and dim lighting leaking in from the gloomy outside world, it just made the home seem…eerie.
“Layla?” My father asked placing a hand on my shoulder. “Is everything alright? Are you feeling okay?”
I nodded, turning away from the saddening scene.
“Fine,” I croaked.
He began to reach for my bag but I pulled away. I wasn’t helpless, just pregnant. I was fine. If I wasn’t the doctors wouldn’t have released me and cleared me for air travel.
“You don’t need to strain yourself.”
I wasn’t too sure if my father was still angry with me, or if he had ever been. But now he was doing everything in his power to please me.
I dropped the bag and embraced my father. It shocked him for moment.
“I’m so sorry, papa.” I breathed.
He sighed, then after a moment wrapped his arms around me, placing his chin on top of my head.
“It’s alright. Everything is alright.”
We stood there for moment until Rebecca came thought the front door.
“The taxi’s here, we need to go or we’ll be late for our flight.”
My father and I looked her way.
I knew Rebecca’s main concern was me telling my father her secret but I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t. They were really beginning to get past the first affair she’d had, it wouldn’t make sense to bring up another.
It wouldn’t be fair to my father.
As I pulled away from my father, he bent down to get my bag. There wasn’t much in there, a couple extra pair of clothes, the iPod Marina had gotten me and a book for the ride.
Rebecca was the first out the house and I was the last, locking the door behind our home of nearly nine years.
As we pulled out of the driveway my father wrapped his arm around his wife as she stared out the window. Our vehicles, I wasn’t exactly sure how, were being shipped already. Probably by boat. I was certain I overheard my father saying most of our things were too large for regular mall shipment. I was certain they were too large to be put on a plane, too.
As we headed to the airport we passed by the entrance to the dock. I didn’t look, for fear I’d break down then and there.
I closed my eyes and tried to sleep the entire ride.
It took about an hour to get to the airport. Once there my father paid for the drive and we made our way through the bustling building.
When we reached the metal detectors, we all emptied our pockets and put the contents in the bins. Before I could walk through the metal detector, my father pulled one of the men with wands to the side and whispered into his ear.
The man nodded and waved me over. I stepped to the side and slipped between two of the detectors. It wasn’t too hard, I still hadn’t gained much weight in the last week.
I unbuttoned my coat revealing a comfortable dark red sweater dress and black tights. My stomach bulged just enough for people to know I wasn’t fat. I was indeed pregnant. I still wasn’t used to saying that.
The man waved the wand over my body beginning with my head.
He didn’t get halfway down before someone interrupted him, calling my name and causing me to turn.
It was a reflex action because I already recognized the voice
“Layla, please wait!” Devin shouted from behind the rails dividing us.
“What the hell are you doing here?” My father snapped.
“I just need to speak with her for a moment.” He pleaded.
I turned away from him, mumbling to the man, “Can we speed this up a bit, please?”
I felt like crying just as the sight of him. To be honest I hated him for being able to stir up theses emotions in me.
“Please, I just-”
“Don’t cause a scene, Devin,” Rebecca said. “Not here.”
“I just need for her to understand why-”
“Why what?” My father snapped. “Please do go on because she hasn’t explained anything to us.”
This caused me to turn back.
“Just…go, Devin. You lied to me and I completely understand why. I wasn’t ready to know. Just...go.”
“But-”
“I don’t want to see you anymore, okay?” I asked on the brink of tears. “I can’t handle it any more. I’m asking…I’m begging…I want you to stop. It’s over.”
The man with the wand finished and Rebecca led me away.
“Layla, please. This isn’t how I want it to end. This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be.”
I wanted so much to look back at him but knew it would only result in me changing my mind about the whole thing.
Yes, he lied to me. He said we were going to be truthful with each other. He lied. We were supposed to have a fairytale ending like he promised but he ruined it. Prince’s didn’t lie to their princess’s. The life guard was always supposed to save its drowning victim. But I guess I wasn’t meant to be saved. I wasn’t supposed to have a happy ending. This was real life, where shit happens.
Life…life wasn’t a fairytale.

  Epilogue

I stood and watched Samara try to stretch her tiny arms over the docks wooden floor to try to touch the shinny fishies, as she called them. Her mahogany eyes shined with delight as she turned her head to plead with me again. She pushed her bottom lip out in a pouting motion but as I gave her a stern stare her rosy cheeks took on a deeper red with anger and disappointment.
She so wanted to jump in and play with her fishes like she did back home but I had already explained to her that these fish were different. The coy pond back home was just a bit more sanitary than this river was.
Not liking my answer, she decided to pay me no heed. I didn’t mind. To be honest my mind was focusing on the one thing I told it not to. The one thing I had tried not to do for the past four years.
I thought about him. It was hard not to. Hell, it was hard not to when I was standing in our very spot. The memories had never left, despite how hard I had wanted them to the first year. If there was a way I could have removed them and burned them I would have then. I wanted to forget and his daughter was a constant reminder of the mistakes I had made. So was her deceased brother.
He was only in the world a moment, a brief hour, thirteen minutes and six seconds, but he left a mark on my heart. Just as Devin had. There were complications with his heart causing it to be underdeveloped.
Every day that I had to live with one child and not two was torture. For the first year of my daughter’s life, I constantly thought about what I could have done differently. What I could have done to change my fate.
I thought meeting Devin was the key but without Devin I wouldn’t have my beautiful four year old daughter. I wouldn’t have grown over the years. But most importantly I wouldn’t have known true love.
It took me two years to figure out Devin and I were meant for each other and another two to gather enough money to move out of my father home and get a plane ticket for my daughter and I.
My father was no longer upset with my decision to see Devin and told me once I figured out what I wanted to do he’d wire me whatever I needed. He loved his granddaughter and didn’t want her to go without. He spoiled her rotten. Rebecca did the same which surprised me. Though she completely despised me, she loved Samara.
Now that they had worked everything out she didn’t step out on my father. At least I didn’t think she did.
And Samara didn’t mind. She loved her grandparents but often asked about her father. At first I’d just change the subject but she was smarter than a normal four year old. She wanted to know. And that’s why we were here at the dock.
I’d given her the locket Devin had gotten me for my birthday. The clasp had been replaced a few weeks after her birth. She’d open it, revealing the picture there, and would ask if that was her father.
Finally after realizing my mistake I told her yes. My mistake was leaving in the first place, not meeting Devin. I realized too late that I should have never left. I was keeping Devin from his daughter and that was very wrong of me.
But now that I was here, in our spot with memories rushing back, I was afraid. What if he didn’t want us anymore? I didn’t too much care about his feeling towards me anymore. It had been four years and if he still loved me fantastic, but I was concerned with Samara. Could I trust him to love Samara? She was flawed, and I didn’t think she’d be able to handle if he refused her. That was my main concern. Her feelings.
“Layla?” His voice asked from behind me.
I turned slowly, realizing I’d been so consumed in my thoughts that I hadn’t heard his footsteps on the dock.
He didn’t look like he’d changed any. He was still the sexy man I remembered. He was in his button down shirt and green tie that nearly matched his gorgeous emerald eyes. His shirt was tucked neatly into his black slacks and, naturally, I had to pull my eyes away from his crotch.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t…I didn’t expect to see you here.” He told me. “Marina said you were back, but I thought…”
I smiled. Marina. I’d been keeping in touch with her since I moved, sending her pictures of Samara, video chatting with her when I could.
She and Jack had gotten together a few weeks after I’d moved. I remembered her concern but I told her I was fine with it. So long as they both were happy. And they were. Jack was better off with someone who liked him and wouldn’t cheat on him. That person was Marina.
“What are you doing here?” He asked, eyes shifting from me to the little girl who was still trying to reach the fish.
It was a moment before I spoke. I’d run this scenario a hundred times in my head, trying to figure out exactly what I was going to say to the man I loved then left, taking his unborn children with me.
“She’s been asking for you.” I told him then hesitated. I was uncomfortable and I hoped he couldn’t see it. “How have you been?”
“Lately? Better. After you left…things were a bit rough. I was a bit…rough.”
I looked at his feet and mumbled a sorry.
He smiled. “Jack tried blackmailing me for a while. He wanted a better