Thirteen

[Ludub]

Thanks again to everyone for the continued support! I really appreciate it!  I hope you like this chapter x

WARNING: VERY ADULT THEMES!

 

Chapter 21

 

“Hey Tam” said Heath, as he walked into the kitchen. “Where is he?” he asked, looking at her with concern. She seemed to be lost in her own thoughts, absently wiping the kitchen counter in small circles, and staring into the distance in a vacant sort of way. The counter was definitely clean by now.

“Out in the garden” she said, sounding a little dazed. “He needs a little space”

“I take it the interview didn’t go well then?” he asked, looking towards the back door with ever growing concern. “Is he okay? Are you sure he’s okay out there?!”

She looked up at him properly, with big worry-filled eyes, and shook her head slowly in a bewildered sort of way. “I had no idea…” she said, “No idea how bad it was…”

He took her hand and led her over to the couch, making her sit down, and then plonking himself on the coffee table in front of her. “You mean the interview?” he asked, starting to really worry. She just looked so dazed and shocked, and whatever had happened while he’d been gone, it had obviously really shaken her.

“No… The interview went well… I suppose…” she said, blinking back tears. “He got through it… and they got what they needed… I just didn’t know how bad things had been for him in that house! …I didn’t know what they’d done to him!”

His face blanched white, and he swallowed hard, really unsure that he wanted to know the details. “You were here for the interview? I mean they let you stay?! He let you listen?!”

She nodded and her eyes filled up with tears. “I wish… I’m just so sad for him… No-one should have to live like that!”

“It was worse than what he’s already told us?!” asked Heath, grimacing a little. He really didn’t want to know the gory details. Kyle had already filled his head with imagery that he worried he might never get rid of. Thinking of Kyle as a small child, being mistreated so badly, made his heart hurt. He just wished that there was some way that he could go back in time and change things for him. He felt so powerless to help.

“So much worse, Heath!” she said, clamping her eyes shut and shaking her head. “He spared us both the details…”

He nodded and glanced out at the kitchen, thinking that he should go and check on Kyle. It couldn’t have been easy talking about any of this, and if Tamara was this shaken up by it, then God knows how Kyle was feeling about things! He patted her on the knee and said, “I’m gonna go check on him.”

She nodded her head at him sadly as he got up to go and said, “Go easy, Heath! He’s not in a good way.”

He walked out into the garden and immediately spotted Kyle on the decking with his guitar in his hands, quietly strumming at it, and staring into space. He walked over to him with two beers in his hand, and sat down beside Kyle, offering him one of the bottles. “You okay?” he asked, taking a sip from his bottle of beer and glancing at him sideways.

Kyle took the bottle from him and set it down on the decking beside him. “mmm-hmm” he murmured, as he continued to strum at the guitar. There was a small bird hopping about, in a way that seemed like it was taunting him, and he was quietly seething inside just looking at it. He began to laugh quietly, shaking his head at himself a little incredulously, fully aware of how ridiculous it was to be angry with a little bird that had done nothing wrong.  He knew that it was irrational but he couldn’t help how he felt.

“Tam said the interview went ok?” ventured Heath, not sure whether to push it with Kyle. It didn’t seem like he really wanted to talk. “What were the detectives like?”

Kyle wasn’t sure how to answer that. Had the interview gone well? He supposed that it had. He’d answered all their questions… somehow. It had made him feel sick to his stomach and he’d had to fight the urge to get up and run to the bathroom to vomit. He’d been shaking so badly, and his voice had been so choked, that he wasn’t even sure that they’d be able to make him out some of the time.

Talking about it in such detail had transported him back there, bringing back all the sensory memories of that dark and scary world that he’d lived in, and the bright and startling one upstairs that had been even worse. He’d almost been able to smell that house again, with its dank basement, so full of damp and rotting wood, and rank with human waste. He’d stared into that camera lens and thought about all the other times he’d been forced to ‘perform’ for the cameras. He wondered how many people had seen those films. Were there people walking about that he might have talked to, or even served a pizza to, that had seen him in those films? Had they bought a piece of his tortured childhood and used it for their own private pleasure? Had they recognised him?

The detectives, Drazic and Davis, had been kind and had done their best to put him at his ease, even making little jokes as the camera was being set up, but it hadn’t really helped. Detective Drazic had explained that they were a specialised unit that dealt with extreme cases of child sexual abuse so nothing that he could say would shock them. From the looks of pity on their faces, he’d guessed that they must have seen the videos and photos seized from the property, and he couldn’t help feeling a deep sense of humiliation, like being stripped naked all over again. To know that they’d seen him used like that, had made him feel like the most pathetic thing on the face of the planet, and all he’d wanted was for the ground to open up and swallow him.

He’d seen the expression on Tamara’s face too, as she’d sat facing him behind the camera, and he’d recognised that look of pity and disgust in her eyes. It was exactly what he had wanted to avoid all these years, and why he’d never told her in the past. She’d insisted on staying for the interview, and he hadn’t been strong enough to refuse, but now he wished with all his heart that he had. How was she ever going to look at him the same way?!

He looked at Heath and gave a heavy sigh, “It went as well as it could have.” He picked up his beer and took a long gulp before placing it back on the decking beside him. “The detectives were kind… sympathetic…” he said, picking at the guitar strings again with a faraway look, “…patronising,”

“Mate, that must have been so hard!” said Heath, giving him a sympathetic look and a little pat on the shoulder that made him flinch. Heath pretended not to notice, and said, “…But they’re gonna try to help find your family… right?”

“Yeah” said Kyle, sounding pretty depressed, “I suppose so.” After talking about all that stuff, he wasn’t sure that any family would want to claim him, not when they found out some of the things he’d had to do. It had stirred up so many memories of things that he’d done his best to forget over the years, pushing them to the far recesses of his mind, and blocking them out. Now they were back, and he could see things right in front of his eyes as though he was back in that house, and back to being that scared little boy. He felt disgusted with himself and was desperately fighting the urge to go and scrub his skin off with a wire brush. Even the beer tasted sour and tainted.

“Well… That’s good isn’t it?” asked Heath, wondering if they’d just taken a massive step backwards in allowing this interview to go ahead. He seemed to be back to one word answers, which was sad, given how far they’d come in the last week. Phoebe’s betrayal hadn’t helped either. He’d been pretty monosyllabic when he’d come home from her house last night, and he’d bitten everyone’s heads off all night. It just seemed like something had broken inside.

Kyle gave an exasperated sigh and turned to face Heath. “What do you want from me, Heath?!”

“Mate… I just…” stammered Heath, pretty sure that this was headed towards a meltdown, and thinking that it might be just what Kyle needed. Maybe he needed to blow up?  Maybe he needed to lash out at someone? Heath looked at his little brother, who was clearly doing his best to hold his anger at bay, and decided that he was more than willing to be his punching bag if that’s what he needed. “I just want you to know that…”

“What?! …Are you fishing for details?!” hissed Kyle, interrupting him and throwing his guitar down onto the grass in front of them with a loud clanging noise. He glared at Heath angrily and growled at him through clenched teeth, “They raped me, Heath! …Over and over… for years!... Is that what you want to hear?! …There are films out there… You could probably get your hands on one if you knew where to look! …Out there for your viewing pleasure!” He spat the last word bitterly and then looked away, staring again at the little bird that was happily flitting about the garden. The anger that he felt right now was overwhelming and it was just building and building in his chest. He was finding it hard to breathe.

“Jesus! ...Mate, I’m so sorry!” said Heath, with eyes welling up with tears. He knew all of this already, but to hear Kyle spell it out to him so clearly, and in no uncertain terms, was truly shocking. “I don’t know what to say…”

“There’s nothing to say” said Kyle, as he picked up his beer, taking a big slug from the bottle, and swishing it around his mouth in a desperate attempt to wash away a taste memory that was invading his mind. He spat it out on the grass, and breathed heavily to try to quell the rising wave of nausea that had quickly followed. He glanced sideways at a pale and nervous looking Heath, “I’ve been trying to forget this stuff for years… but it doesn’t really go… not really.” He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes and mumbled, “Not in here, where it really counts… It’s all still here… and it might as well have happened yesterday because I can’t forget what it felt like…”

“Mate…” said Heath, in a soft and sympathetic voice like he would use with Harley, “I’m so sorry.” All he wanted to do was give him a hug, but something was telling him that Kyle didn’t want to be touched right now, so they just sat there in silence for what seemed like forever.

“They want to talk to you” said Kyle, breaking the silence and taking Detective Drazic’s card out of his pocket. He set it down and slid it across the decking towards Heath. “It’s about Kyle’s funeral… You’re the only living relative… as far as they know…”

Heath looked down at the card and then back up at Kyle as he stared into the distance across the garden. It was a really weird thing for him to say ‘Kyle’s funeral’ so casually. It sent shivers down Heath’s spine. He suddenly felt very guilty, that with everything going on with this ‘Kyle’, he’d hardly given the other Kyle a second thought. This poor little boy had been his flesh and blood, and he’d been murdered and left to rot in a back garden with all the other victims. He wondered what the real Kyle would have been like and suddenly felt very sad that he’d never had the chance to meet him. Kyle’s funeral? This was all so complicated.

“Guys!” shouted Tamara, suddenly appearing at the back door with a shocked expression on her face. “Guys! You have to come in! It’s on the TV! They’ve caught the Hames’!”

 

*****

Kyle got off the phone with Detective Wainwright and flopped down on the couch beside Tamara, blowing out a big breath, and staring off into the distance. Tamara reached for his other hand and said, “Well? Baby? What did he say?!”

Kyle shrugged and said in a very flat and slightly dream-like voice, “Wainwright said that they’ve been taken into custody and that he’ll let me know if there are any further developments.”

“That’s all?!” asked Heath, perched on the arm of the couch beside Tamara and looking at him with concern. Kyle seemed to have gone all ‘spaced out’ again since seeing the Hames on the TV screen earlier. He seemed quiet and distant, more so than normal, and his face had taken on a vacant expression that was a little unnerving and mask-like.

“Yep… That’s all” said Kyle, getting up and walking out to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Tamara and Heath glanced at each other, sharing a mutual concern, and then turned to look at Kyle out in the kitchen. Neither of them were sure of what to make of it.

“I think we should go get some pizza” said Kyle, suddenly turning to face them both. “Heath, why don’t you give Bianca a call and tell her to meet us at Angelo’s in an hour?” He walked past them both, as they stared at him in surprise, and headed for the bedroom. “I’m gonna have a shower!” he shouted back at them, as he disappeared.

“What? What just happened?!” said Tamara, looking at Heath in confusion. “Pizza?! He wants pizza?! Right now?!”

“I think he might just be in shock, Tam” he said, staring at the doorway to the hall. He could hear the water in the shower starting, and shook his head a little, wondering what to do for the best. If Kyle really just wanted a bit of normality, that might not be such a bad thing, but how normal would a trip to Angelo’s be tonight when everyone would be talking about the Hames’ arrest?! Kyle would be a hot topic of conversation, and all eyes would be on him, without a doubt. He just didn’t think that Kyle was ready for that kind of attention. He turned to Tamara and said, “We can’t let him do this… not tonight!”

“How are you gonna stop him?” she asked, looking a little panicked, “You know how stubborn he is!”

“I’ll say that Harley has a fever or something… and maybe we could just order some pizza in” said Heath, taking his phone out to call Bianca.

 

*****

Kyle stood in the shower with his eyes closed, trying to drown out the hushed conspiratorial voices that he could hear out in the living-room, and trying even harder to silence ‘that’ voice in his own head. The one that told him just how pathetic and worthless and disgusting he really was. He picked up the sponge and began to scrub at his skin, frantically trying to wash away that feeling of revulsion he had for his own body, and rubbing his skin raw. He hadn’t done this since he’d been a teenager, but old habits were beginning to resurface, and he couldn’t stop himself. David and Jenny had spent a lot of time taking him back and forth to see a counsellor in his teens, and he’d eventually stopped it, but things were getting too much for him now and he needed this. He remembered the day that the social worker had come to get him and how roughly Jessica had scrubbed him down. She’d left his skin red and raw, with deep scratches everywhere, but it was the first time that he’d felt even vaguely clean. He’d spent the next few years trying to scrub himself away. Trying to scrub himself out of existence. They’d realised eventually, and made sure to get him some help, but it had been a long road to recovery. He glanced across at himself now in the mirror, slightly fogged up with steam, and all he could see was that filthy little boy he’d once been. Dirty and disgusting, inside and out. He wanted to scrub every inch of his skin off, so there was nothing left, and maybe then he might feel a little better. Maybe… He looked at the sponge in his hand and realised that it wasn’t going to do the job. It was far too soft. What he needed was one of those yellow sponges that they used for cleaning, with the green abrasive wire wool side to it. He wondered if there was a clean one under the sink. He turned off the shower and stepped out, and began rummaging among the cleaning materials under the sink, until he found a packet of clean sponges, exactly the ones he’d been thinking of. He felt a surge of relief as he held one in his hand, and smiled a little to himself as he ran his fingers over the abrasive green side of the sponge, before grabbing a bottle of bleach too. As he stood up, he accidentally made eye contact with himself, and flinched a little, in the knowledge that what he was about to do was wrong. He knew that. Of course he knew that! Four years of counselling had taught him that… eventually… He stared at himself in horror as he stood there in front of the mirror, about to self-harm for the first time in nearly ten years, and asked himself under his breath, “What are you doing?!” He threw the sponge back under the sink, and set the bottle of bleach, with shaking hands, back onto the shelf and closed the door. He grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his waist before sitting down on the floor of the bathroom. Hugging his arms around his knees, just like he’d done his whole life, he began to sob. “Tam!” he shouted, his voice a little choked with tears. “Tam! Can you come in here, please?!”

 

*****

“They said they’ll be here tomorrow!” said Tamara, giving him a big smile, and sitting down in his lap on the armchair. “They sounded so excited, babe!” she said, leaning in for a kiss. Tamara had been on the phone out in the garden for nearly half an hour and Kyle had begun to wonder if she was ever coming back.

“Tomorrow?!” he said, almost choking on the word and looking at her in shock. “They’re coming tomorrow?!”

“Is that okay?” she asked, suddenly a little worried that she’d made a mistake. He’d asked her to phone them and invite them to come visit, and when they’d said that they could come tomorrow, she’d thought that he’d be pleased. The sooner the better had been her thinking, just in case he changed his mind again.

“I guess so” he said, shifting a little uncomfortably in the seat, and looking out the window. He was incredibly nervous at the prospect of seeing the Summers again and really didn’t know what he was going to say. Tamara had talked him into it last night when she’d found him in the bathroom like that. He’d told her about his history of self-harm and how much the Summers had helped him. It had been the push that he’d needed, making him see how much he needed people like them in his life right now, and he’d agreed to let Tamara call them in the morning and invite them. He needed people that he could trust around him. Phoebe’s betrayal was still weighing heavily on his mind, and it had made him appreciate the care that the Summers had shown him over those difficult years, even more than he had before. But now that he knew that they were actually coming, he wasn’t sure that he could face them again. His heart was thumping in his chest just thinking about seeing David and Jenny, and having to talk to them about all this stuff with the Hames case. He’d managed to live with them for more than four years without telling them very much at all. But now it had all been brought out into the open, and laid bare for all to see, he was sure that they’d want to talk about it with him. They were ‘talk about your feelings’ kind of people but the thought of having to say those words to them just terrified him. He held their letter in his hand and ran his thumb over their signatures at the bottom. “Tomorrow’s good” he said, nodding for his own benefit and turning to give Tamara a kiss on the forehead. He looked at his wife as she sat in his lap, gazing at him with her big brown eyes, so full of love and kindness, and he thought how lucky he was to have this beautiful woman in his life, and one so willing to fight his corner. With her by his side, he could face just about anything. He leaned his head against hers and whispered, “They’re going to love you, you know!”

[Ludub]

Thanks again to all who took the time to comment!  Much appreciated! Hope you like this chapter x

WARNING: VERY ADULT THEMES!

 

Chapter 22

 

“It’ll be okay, babe!” said Tamara, leaning down and planting a kiss on Kyle's forehead. “Just distract them with Noah if you get nervous!” she said, giggling and gently stroking the top of Noah’s head as Kyle bounced him on his knee.

“Oh yeah! …Never thought of that!” he said in a sarcastic tone, rolling his eyes and shaking his head at her. He couldn’t help but laugh though, even if his stomach was doing somersaults and his heart was racing a little. Tamara could always make him laugh, and he loved her for it. He looked down at Noah’s chubby little face as he chewed on his own fist, and he pulled a funny face at him. “They’re gonna love you, little man!” he said, smiling from ear to ear. “But then… who wouldn’t?!”

Tamara spun back round to look at the dining table, taking in the mountains of food set out on platters, and the floral display in the middle of the table.  Bianca had gotten a little carried away with the pastries and sandwiches. She shook her head a little and put her hands on her hips. “Do you think we have enough?” she asked, glancing back over her shoulder at Kyle with a mischievous grin on her face. “I mean… I wouldn’t want anyone to go hungry!”

Kyle snorted at her, throwing her a smirk, and lifting Noah up into the air high above him, “I think we have enough to feed an army, don’t we Noah?! Uncle Heath and Auntie Bianca went a little bit nuts didn’t they? …Yes, that’s right… Yes, they did!” laughed Kyle. Noah just gurgled at him in reply.

“It was really nice of them!” said Tamara, smiling at him and sitting down on the arm of the couch. “Heath is so nervous and excited for you, y’know…” she said, stroking Kyle’s hair gently as she looked at him. “I can’t believe he cleaned this whole place this morning! I mean… Have you ever seen Heath clean before?! I didn’t think he even knew what a mop looked like!” She could see how surprised Kyle looked, as he gazed around the room, and they both began to giggle a little. “He was pretty embarrassed… like I’d caught him wearing Bianca’s stilettos or something!”

Kyle laughed at that mental image, imagining Heath stilting around in Bianca’s ridiculously high heels, and brandishing a mop.  He lifted Noah up again so he could kiss him on the cheek. “Uncle Heath can be a big softie sometimes, can’t he?!” he said to Noah, throwing Tamara a wink, and then making a silly face at Noah again.

Suddenly there was a knock at the door, and Kyle jumped nearly a mile high, glancing at Tamara with a look that was something akin to panic. "Oh God, they're here!" he whispered, as his heart began to race. He put Noah down in his bouncer and wiped his sweaty palms frantically on the legs of his jeans. He was more nervous than he'd been in a long time, and that was certainly saying something!

"It'll be okay!" said Tamara, giving him a very quick peck on the lips, and then skipping over to the door. "Here goes!" she said, giving him a little wink as she began to turn the door handle.

Kyle thought back to the first time a door had opened with the Summers standing on the other side of it. Memories of that day flashed through his mind, as though he was back there, and he marvelled at how differently he felt about them now…

 

13 years ago…

Kyle stood on the doorstep beside Miss Blenheim, staring at the ground, and digging his teeth into the flesh of his tongue as a reminder to himself that he wasn't to talk. The red door swung open, and a tidy looking woman with red wavy hair and bright green eyes, looked down at him. Suddenly there was a pair of arms around his little body, pulling him in tight, and a high pitched squeal of excitement right beside his ear.

"Oh, Kyle, we're so pleased to have you here!" she chirped, rocking him from side to side, as every muscle in his body went as stiff as a board. He knew where hugs like this inevitably led, and he wasn't looking forward to it. He was tired, and scared, and he didn't know what these people wanted of him. She took his hand and led him into the living-room, nodding with her head for him to sit down on the shabby chic brown leather sofa.

He sat down and stared at his shoes that were far too small for him and cruelly crushing his toes. He'd never really worn shoes before he'd left that house, and these ones really hurt his feet, but he was so unfamiliar with footwear that he didn't know that they weren't supposed to. A lot of things in his life had really hurt, but in his experience, discomfort was just a part of life, and pain was something that you had to get used to, or learn to cope with.

A man appeared beside him and stuck his hand out to him, "So this is Kyle!?" said the man with brown Doc Martin boots. Kyle took the hand held out in front of him, and let the man give him a big hearty handshake, but he didn't look up. It didn't matter what he looked like, he thought to himself, in the end they all just wanted the same thing. "I'm David" said the man, hunkering down to his level and looking at him sympathetically, with big blue eyes hidden behind thick framed glasses. He had very dark hair that was going a bit grey at the temples, and a full beard that was a mixture of grey and black, with a little bit of red as well. He gave Kyle a little wink and a smile, and said, "That's my wife, Jenny... We're really happy that you're here, Kyle!"

'That name again!' he thought to himself, frowning and wondering where it had suddenly come from. He didn't really care what they called him though, as long as they didn't hurt him too much. He was so scared! At least he'd known what to expect in the other house and what the rules were. He glanced at David, and then quickly at Jenny, and tried to gauge what type of people they were. Jenny was all nerves and smiles and she was talking with her hands in an excited way to that woman, Miss Blenheim. David was looking at him, staring a little expectantly, and kept giving him little smiles that were making him feel quite uneasy. All this 'over-excitedness' didn't sit well with him. When adults acted like that, it usually meant that things would get scary pretty quickly, and that there might be some of that horrible burny powder involved. He hated that stuff! It always gave him nosebleeds, and he'd end up getting sick everywhere. They always seemed to find that really funny. He glanced quickly around the room when they weren't looking and saw a tripod with a camera on it. He hung his head again knowing now that it was only a matter of time.

“Okay slugger! Why don’t you come with me and I’ll show you to your room" said David, picking up his backpack, and motioning with his head for him to follow him.

Kyle gave a little sigh and got up to follow. It was the same as the many journeys he had made up those stairs over the years. It was always the same. Walking into the unknown, with no idea of what lay ahead, and no say in what happened to him when he got there. He glared at the back of David’s head, silently seething inside, as he trailed behind with an ever growing sense of dread. None of this stuff ever got any easier, no matter how many times it happened. But this had been happening for as long as he could remember and it wasn't like he'd ever had a choice. He just wanted it to be over.

He began to picture a place that was yellow and bright, with little plastic buckets shaped like castles, and a red plastic spade. It was the place that he'd often try to escape to in his head when things got to be too much. He didn't know where it was, or even if he'd ever really been there, but it felt like somewhere safe and full of hope. He'd imagine himself filling one of the buckets full of that white grainy stuff, scoop by scoop, and he'd try to concentrate on getting it filled to the top. If he could keep that in his mind, and hold it there for long enough, then he could sometimes block out what was happening. He would simply leave his body sometimes, escaping the terrible world that he lived in, in favour of that simple scene. It was warm there and he had a sense that it was somewhere that he belonged. But something would always bring him crashing back and he'd feel all the worse for his sickening return to reality. Sometimes he wished that he could just die.

David led him over to the bed and sat down, patting the mattress in an inviting way, and motioning with his head for Kyle to join him. Kyle breathed out, bracing himself for whatever was coming next, and took the space on the bed beside him. Bedrooms and beds only meant one thing. He stared at his scruffy old shoes again and waited.

"Do you like your new room, Kyle?" asked David, gazing around at the posters they’d put up to make it look more like a boy’s bedroom, and looking back at him for an answer. "I mean, we can change it if you don't like it?..."

Kyle continued to stare at his shoes, wondering when this man was going to stop babbling and get on with what he'd brought him here for. He hated the ones that tried to talk to him, making chit chat and asking him stupid questions, as though they cared about the answers. He hated them even more than the ones who treated him like a piece of meat. At least they were honest! He didn't like the ones who wanted to pretend that they were friends in some way. It made what came next so much worse.

"There's a closet over there for all your clothes" said David, faltering a little as he picked up Kyle's backpack again, realising how light it was, and setting it on the bed. All he had in it was a sweater, a spare t-shirt, and a couple of pairs of underpants. He certainly wouldn't need a whole closet for those!

David looked at him with big soft eyes, and placed his hand on his knee. Kyle couldn't help flinching but he was certain that worse was still to come. David took his hand away and tilted his head at him " I know it must be really scary coming to live with total strangers... But me and Jenny, we're not so bad when you get to know us... And we'd really like to be friends with you, if you'll let us." Kyle didn't answer him and continued to stare at his shoes, so David slowly got up, tentatively patting him on the shoulder, and said, "Well, I'll leave you to settle in then, Kyle. Maybe you want to unpack... And have a little look around your new room..."

Kyle watched him leave, relieved that ‘that’ hadn't happened, at least for now. He didn’t want to hope for too much though. He figured that ‘it’ would probably happen later, when the social worker was gone, but for now he was ‘safe’ at least. He hugged his arms around his knees and peered around the room. It didn’t look like the rooms in the Hames’ house. This room had movie posters on the walls, the windows didn’t have bars on the inside, and the sheets he was sitting on were clean, and ironed, and they smelled nice. Everything about this house seemed different. The Summers seemed different… but he was still scared to hope… And he’d seen that camera out in the living-room… He looked down at the ground trying to picture what their basement looked like, and he banged his foot on the floor, listening for a reply, and wondering how many children there were down there…

 

Present day...

Kyle stood there beside the couch, feeling hardly able to breathe, and watched as Tamara pulled the door open. There, in front of him now, were the only kind and gentle adults that he’d ever known as a child. The first good people that he’d ever met. David and Jenny, standing on his doorstep, and smiling at him in that kind and innocent way that he remembered!  He looked at Jenny, with her green eyes already welling up with tears, and the soft and gentle expression on David’s face, and he felt a pain in his chest like his heart might physically tear in two. He was shaking already, and when he went to speak, the words just wouldn't come. "Uh… uh" he stammered, forgetting everything that he'd planned to say to them.

"Oh sweetheart!" exclaimed Jenny, looking past Tamara at the young man standing in the middle of the living room. “We’ve missed you so much!”

Kyle took a few faltering steps towards them, and managed to say, “I’m so sorry!” as tears began to roll down his cheeks. He looked at David with a shamed expression on his face and hung his head. “I’m so sorry” he said again, with his voice a little choked by the tears.

David moved past his wife, going straight to Kyle and took him by his shoulders, lowering his head a little to look Kyle in the eye. “You have nothing to be sorry for! Do you hear me?” he said, nodding at him for emphasis. “I’m the one who should be sorry.” With that, he put his arms around Kyle and pulled him into a hug, with his hand cradling the back of Kyle’s head. “We love you” he said, motioning with one arm for his wife to join them. “We both love you, so much.”

Jenny rushed across the room and David pulled back a little to let her join in the hug. Suddenly he had both parents hugging him tight, as Tamara watched on a little surprised. She hadn’t expected things to go so well, so quickly.

“You have no idea how much we’ve missed you.” said David, “We’re not going to let you out of our sight ever again.”

After a moment or two, Kyle pulled away from the hug and wiped at his tears in an embarrassed sort of way, looking across the room to Tamara. He held his hand out to her and said, “This is Tam.” She walked over and took his hand and he pulled her to him, putting his arm around her waist, so they were both facing Jenny and David. “This is my wife, Tamara” he said smiling proudly.

“I’ve never been so pleased to meet anyone!” said David, smiling from ear to ear. “You have no idea how much that phone call yesterday meant to us” he said, reaching out to her to give her a hug. Kyle smiled to himself, a little sadly, thinking how much of a hugger David was, and how much that had scared him when he’d first gone to live with them. It had taken a long time for him to understand that all David wanted from him was a hug.

"I think we're going to be good friends" said Jenny, giving Tamara a hug too, and smiling at Kyle with eyes still wet with tears. "She's just beautiful!" she said, giving Kyle a little wink. She pulled away and looked over at the bouncer as Noah gurgled and kicked his little legs, "Oh my god, he's absolutely gorgeous!" she exclaimed, looking back at Kyle with a huge smile on her face. "Can I?" she asked, tilting her head at him, and then at Tamara.

"Of course!" said Tamara, motioning for Jenny to sit down on the couch. Kyle went over to the bouncer and lifted Noah out, before placing him gently in Jenny's arms. "This is your grandson" he said, feeling a surge of love for this woman in front of him, the only real 'mother' he'd ever had. "This is Noah" he said, suddenly feeling incredibly proud.

Jenny took Noah in her arms and smiled down at his dimpled little cheeks and big brown eyes. "He's just beautiful!" she said, looking back and forth between Kyle and the baby. "Gosh, he looks just like his daddy, doesn't he?!" she said, turning him round on her knee to show David, who was watching from the nearby armchair. Kyle sat perched on the arm of the couch and felt his chest swell with pride. Noah did look like him, but he had Tamara's eyes.

"He's a beautiful baby" said David, nodding in agreement and looking at Kyle with a big smile. "You've got a lovely little family here." he said, leaning over and letting Noah grip his finger with his chubby little hand.

Kyle nodded, thinking about how far he'd come. Despite everything that was going on, he did have a lot to be thankful for. He had a beautiful supportive wife, and a gorgeous little baby boy... and now he even had two loving parents! And that was before he took into account the support that Heath and Bianca had shown him since all of this had blown up in his face. Maybe he would get through all this stuff with the Hames' after all?

 

 

*****

 

 

Heath looked up from setting one of the tables in Angelo's, ready for a large birthday party booking, due to arrive in half an hour. Twenty screaming teenage girls was the last thing he needed today! He was so nervous for Kyle, and couldn't stop his mind from drifting back to the house, and wondering what was going on there. He hoped that things were going well. He didn’t think that Kyle was strong enough for any more disappointment. He looked over at the door, and spotted Phoebe as she rushed in, tying her black apron round her waist.

“What do you think you’re doing here?!” he asked, meeting Phoebe at the doorway, surprised to see her wearing her work uniform. “You can’t seriously think that you still have a job here, can you?!” 

She looked up at him with a look of shock on her face. “But… but… I…” she stammered, blanching a little white in the face.

“But nothing!” he said, taking her by the elbow and turning her back towards the door. “You’ve really hurt Kyle …worse than you can imagine” he growled in her ear, as he dragged her out of the restaurant, “but that wasn’t enough for you, was it?!”

“I wasn’t really going to…” she said, dragging her feet and trying to turn to face him. She managed to yank her arm away from him, and turned to look at him, giving him a pleading look. “I wouldn’t do that! You have to believe me! …Please, Heath, I need this job!”

“You should have thought of that before!” said Heath, amazed at the cheek of the girl. She just didn’t seem to see the damage and hurt that she’d caused, or even seem particularly apologetic.

“I didn’t mean to hurt Kyle!” she said, interrupting him and shaking her head at him. “I didn’t know what was on that laptop, Heath! You have to believe me! I didn’t know!”

“You threatened Brax!” he snarled in her ear, pulling in close to make sure that no-one else would hear. “You threatened Ric and Casey! How could you do that?!”

She hung her head and her face blushed up bright red. “I wasn’t really going to…” she said, “I just wanted to…”

“You just wanted to twist the knife!…” he snapped, grabbing her arm again to move her towards the door. “You can’t work here, Phoebe!,,, Ash works here, Kyle works here… This is Kyle’s restaurant! What part of this did you think would be okay?!”

“But I lost my job at the school!” she whined at him, standing now at the top of the stairs. “I’m gonna have a criminal record because of the laptop …so they won’t let me teach!” she said, looking at him all wide-eyed and scared. “I have to work somewhere, Heath!  You can’t just fire me!”

He looked at her in surprise and disgust. “You expect Kyle to keep you on here …after what you did?!” He wondered how she could be so brass-necked as to swan in here and expect to keep working, side by side with Ash and Kyle, after treating them both so badly. He had to hand it to the girl, she had guts! “I don’t care where you work, Pheebs, but it won’t be here!” he said, giving her a little push towards the stairs. “I think we’d have pretty fair grounds for dismissal, don’t you?!”

“I have nothing left, Heath! I need this job!” she whinged, “Ash and Kat made me move out! I have nothing, Heath! Nothing!” she said, as tears streamed down her cheeks.

“You expect me to feel sorry for you?!” asked Heath, standing with his arms crossed and shaking his head at her a little incredulously.

She stared at him, seemingly lost for words for the first time ever, and shrugged her shoulders. “I’m sorry, okay?” she said, hanging her head and biting her bottom lip.

“No, not okay!” said Heath. “Not okay, Phoebe… Not even remotely okay… I think you should go now, don’t you?”

She nodded and began to walk down the stairs and he breathed a sigh of relief that she was finally going. But suddenly she turned around to face him, about five steps down, and glared back up at him. “I could still do it, you know!” she spat at him bitterly. “I could still drop that precious brother of yours in it!”

“There she is!” he exclaimed in a theatrical manner, slow clapping at her, as he stared down at her in the stairwell. “That’s the real Phoebe Nicholson! Take a bow! The ice queen lives!” He shook his head at her a little despairingly and said, “You do what you want to do, Pheebs!… Tell the whole world if you want to! …But when you’re lying in your bed at night… all alone… without a friend in the world… I just hope that you think it was worth it!”

She opened her mouth again as though to speak, but something in her expression suddenly changed, and her whole body just slumped. With a defeated sigh and her head hanging low, she turned and walked away down the stairs. Heath watched her go and thought about the fact that Brax had never really liked her. Maybe Brax had been a better judge of character than he’d given him credit for? He just hoped that she wouldn’t follow through on her threats.

Heath turned, walking back to the bar across the restaurant, and pulled out one of the stools to sit down on. He reached over the bar, lifting a bottle of whiskey and a glass, and poured himself a shot. He was tired and feeling very stressed, and he thought that he could do with a drink to calm his nerves. Phoebe had made him angry and more than a little depressed. This whole thing with Kyle was so complicated and it just felt like they were all on a constant rollercoaster. Kyle seemed to take one step forwards, and two steps back on a day to day basis, and they all spent their time walking on eggshells around him. It was exhausting! And now he had even more things to worry about! He lifted his glass and threw the whiskey back in one gulp. As he set the glass back on the bar, he saw Ash walk in, and gave him a little nod. He pulled Detective Drazic’s card out of his pocket and looked at it again a little sadly.

“Hey” said Heath, as Ash slid onto the stool beside him, “Run into Phoebe on your way in?”

“Yeah” said Ash, sounding a bit depressed and leaning his elbow on the bar with his head on his hand. “She said that you fired her…”

“She can’t work here… not after…” he said, trailing off, as he looked at the card in his hand. He didn’t know how he was going to broach the subject of the funeral with Kyle. Burying the real Kyle here in Summer Bay seemed like the right thing to do, so he could be buried beside Casey and little Rocco, but he knew that it was going to be incredibly hard for the ‘Kyle’ that was still alive. The Detectives had arranged for his body, or what was left of it, to be sent to the Bay, to one of those funeral homes, and the plan was for them to hold a small private funeral on Tuesday. He didn’t know if ‘Kyle’ would want to be there or not, or if burying someone with his own name would just be too weird. He couldn’t keep it a secret from him either though. Brax seemed to have gone to ground, and he and Ash hadn’t managed to get in touch with him yet, so he still didn’t know about the real Kyle. Heath was having to make all of the decisions on his own, and that wasn’t something that came naturally, or that he found particularly easy. He felt like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.

“Mate, you okay?” asked Ash, after a moment’s silence, as he eyed the card in Heath’s hand. “Is that the Detective that’s dealing with Kyle’s case?”

Heath nodded and put the card back in his pocket. He reached for another glass behind the bar and poured two glasses of whiskey, one for himself and one for Ash, and pushed Ash’s glass towards him. He lifted his glass to his lips and shook his head, staring off into the distance. “How do you tell your brother that you’re burying the real ‘him’ on Tuesday?!”

[Ludub]

Thanks again for all the support! You guys are great!!!  Hope you enjoy this chapter x

WARNING: VERY ADULT THEMES

 

Chapter 23

 

“So, you got on well then?” asked Bianca, holding Harley on her knee and letting him throw himself backwards while holding onto her hands.  It was a game that he’d only recently discovered and he wanted to do it all the time now.

“Yeah” said Kyle, with a half-smile as he stared off into space. “They were amazing, actually” he said, looking slightly dazed, and as though he couldn’t quite believe it himself.

“Where are they staying?” asked Heath, giving Tamara a relieved smile. “They’re not at the caravan park, are they?”

“No, they’re at the Sands” said Tamara, sitting in Kyle’s lap with one arm thrown around his neck. “They’re coming back for lunch tomorrow if you want to meet them. I think they’d really like to meet you.” she said, looking back and forth between Heath and Bianca. “They know how much you mean to both of us, so they’d like to get to know you.”

Kyle looked up suddenly, as though he’d just registered what they were talking about, and said, “I want to give them a tour of the Bay. I want them to see everything… where I live… where I work… I want everyone to meet them!” He suddenly seemed a little too excited, with a slightly manic expression, and it was making Heath a bit uneasy. Everything was so up and down with Kyle at the moment, and it was very confusing. “I want to take them to Angelo’s for lunch, and show them the gym, and maybe take Noah and Harley to the beach as well!” he said, looking excitedly at the three worried faces staring at him.

“Mate?” said Heath, finding it hard to hide his concern, “Are you sure that’s such a good idea? …I mean, with the whole story just breaking about the Hames’ arrest and stuff… People are…”

“So… what? ...I’m supposed to just hide away forever!?” asked Kyle, sounding more than a little annoyed and defensive. “Should I just crawl back into some little black hole and sit there?! Don’t you think those people took away my freedom for long enough?! …Nearly fourteen years, Heath! Enough is enough!”

Heath nodded his head, and looked at the floor, trying to avoid an argument. Kyle certainly had a point, but he didn’t think he was ready for the level of interest that there was out there in the local community, or for the whispering and gossip-mongering that was going on. Heath had had to fend off at least three groups of customers asking thoroughly inappropriate questions today during his shift. And that was only today! There’d even been a group of teenage boys laughing and making stupid jokes about ‘paedos’ that he’d had to throw out of the place. People were so incredibly stupid sometimes! He didn’t think that Kyle would be able to cope with that at all!

“Baby, couldn’t we just have a barbecue instead?” asked Tamara, picking up on Heath’s concerns. “I mean… they can see Angelo’s another time. There’s no rush is there?”

He glared at both Heath and Tamara, angry at what he saw as their attempts to control him, and said, “If I want to show my parents where I work… and that I’m not the total disappointment that they probably thought I was… then that’s my choice! …Isn’t it?!”

“Yeah, it is” said Heath, giving him a shrug of his shoulders and throwing Tamara a worried glance. “But… um…” he stammered, unsure of how to tell him, “…There’s a lot of talking going on out there, mate… People are talking about you… and about… uh… about the abuse…”

Kyle looked away, shaking his head and clenching his jaw, as he stared off into space. “Let them talk” he said, sounding a little bitter. “I’ve spent enough time hiding away from the world… I’m not doing it anymore…” he said, in a way that seemed like he was talking more to himself than to them.  

“Okay, then that’s what we’ll do” said Tamara, giving his hand a little squeeze and kissing him on the forehead. “If that’s what you really want.”

“If you’re sure” said Heath, wondering if he’d be able to protect him in some way from all the petty gossiping outside. He’d do his best... He glanced at Kyle, as he sat there smiling to himself now, and clearly feeling good for the first time in a long time, and he decided to hold off on telling him about the funeral. He knew that he’d have to tell him tomorrow, but he could see that Kyle was in a good place tonight, and he didn’t want to take that away from him. Not yet.

 

 

*****

Heath lifted his beer and took a swig from the bottle, glancing at Kyle, as they sat outside on the decking in the fading sunshine. He really didn’t know what to do. It was Sunday night, and preparations for the funeral were going to have to start tomorrow, so he was quickly running out of time. He was going to have to tell Kyle about it, and he really wasn’t looking forward to it, but he’d already put it off for too long. Kyle was leaning back in the sunshine with his eyes closed, looked contented for the first time in weeks, and Heath really didn’t want to ruin this day for him. Today had been such a fantastic day in every way. It really couldn’t have gone any better! The Summers had turned out to be the kindest people that Heath had ever met, and they’d been incredibly welcoming to both Heath and Bianca, and made a huge fuss of all the kids. They’d all gotten on like a house on fire. The tour of the Bay had passed without incident, and Heath had even managed to deter a group of nosy locals intent on speaking to Kyle. They’d met John and Marilyn outside Angelo’s, and dealt with Chris and Irene at the diner, but they’d all been nothing but kind, so that had gone much better than he would have expected! The Summers had seemed impressed with the restaurant and the gym, and Heath had been touched by how loving and affectionate they were with Kyle. They couldn’t have seemed more proud of him, or happier for him to have done well in life. It was a strange thing; it was almost like they’d always been there. Kyle seemed so at home with them, even after all this time apart. It was as though they really were his parents.

Looking at Kyle now as he sat basking in the dying heat of the sun, it just seemed too cruel to take this day from him… It didn’t seem right to make him think about Kyle Braxton, the child that was murdered all those years ago, and whose identity he’d been living ever since. Not today… Not now...  But he didn’t have a choice! He just wished that there was more time, but the funeral director was coming after lunch tomorrow to talk funeral arrangements, and the coffin would be arriving at the house on Tuesday morning. Not only that, but his mother Cheryl was arriving tomorrow evening, which would add further complication, and he still needed to talk to Josh and Evie about it. Dropping the funeral on Kyle like this was going to be the hardest part of all though. He really wasn’t sure how Kyle would take it.

He took a deep breath and one last slug of his beer, and turned to face Kyle. “Mate?” he said, leaning over and touching him lightly on the arm to get his attention. “I uh… I need…I need to talk to you about something.” he said, stammering over his words and sounding noticeably nervous.

Kyle didn’t open his eyes, but gave a little sigh, and said, “It’s about Kyle’s funeral isn’t it?”

“Uh…” said Heath, unable to hide his surprise, “Uh… yeah… it is…” He hadn’t expected to get to this point so quickly, so the speech that he’d been running over and over in head was now redundant, and he found himself a little lost for words. Kyle saying ‘Kyle’s funeral’ also threw him a little. He was never going to get used to that.

Kyle opened his eyes, and gave Heath a sad little smile. “It’s okay, Heath.” he said, shrugging his shoulders and lifting his bottle of beer to take a sip. “Kyle was your brother and I think you’re doing the right thing burying him here.”

“How…?” stuttered Heath, “How did… How did you know?!”

Kyle gave him a wry little smile and rolled his eyes at him. “You left all the arrangements scribbled on an envelope in the living-room…” He tilted his head at Heath in a sympathetic sort of way and said, “It’s okay, Heath… I knew this was coming.” He got to his feet and took Heath’s empty bottle from him. “I’ll grab us another couple of beers.” he said, walking off towards the kitchen. “Back in a minute.”

Heath watched him go, and wondered whether this was Kyle going into some kind of denial again, or if he was really okay with this whole thing. Heath waited for him, staring at the back door, but he seemed to be taking an incredibly long time. He began to worry.

A few minutes later, Kyle finally reappeared, letting Josh hold onto his arm as he led him out into the garden. He had three beer bottles held in one hand, and he gave Heath a little nod to make space for Josh, before leading him over and getting him to sit down.

Kyle sat back down where he’d been before, opening a beer for each of the two boys, before opening his own, and taking a big gulp. “I think we need to sort out pallbearers…” said Kyle, with a slightly pained expression on his face. Heath could see that he was doing his best to put on a brave face but none of this was easy for him. He might be saying all the right things, and pretending that it was all okay, but the prospect of burying ‘Kyle Braxton’ was clearly taking its toll all the same. “I explained all of this to Josh this morning” said Kyle. “He knows the score.”

Heath was shocked that Kyle was so far ahead with all of this, and that he’d even taken it upon himself to speak to Josh about it. “You’re okay with this?” asked Heath, glancing at Josh and wondering if a blind man could be a pallbearer or not. But then he figured that all he really had to do was walk in a straight line and let the others lead him. “You reckon you’ll be able to do this?”

Josh nodded, looking a little nervous, and said, “Andy said he’ll help out too if you need another pair of hands.”

“Okay so that’s me, you, Josh, and Andy… I reckon we can ask Ash too” said Kyle, “So we just need one more…”

Heath sat with his mouth hanging open, in complete and total shock, as Kyle took charge of things. “Um… I…” stammered Heath again, wondering how many more times this brother of his was going to render him speechless. He tried to think of who else to ask. He was sad that Brax wouldn’t be there, and that he’d be burying their little brother without Brax even knowing that he’d ever existed. This whole thing was so incredibly sad.

“I don’t know who else to ask” said Heath, thinking that there wasn’t really anyone else within the close family circle that he’d want there. Then he looked at Kyle, and he thought about today, and a thought came to him. He gave Kyle a little half-smile and said, “Unless… do you think David might do it?”

Kyle looked surprised for a moment, and Heath could see that he was a little unsure, but a smile slowly crept across his face. “I think so” said Kyle, nodding and looking a little relieved. “I’ll give him a call in the morning” he said, thinking that having the Summers there would make this whole thing just a little easier.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” asked Heath, throwing Kyle a concerned look. “I mean… No-one would blame you if it was all a bit too much for you, mate?”

“Yeah” said Josh, nodding his head in agreement, “I can’t imagine how hard this is for you.”

Kyle leaned back against the wooden post behind him and breathed out a sad sigh. “Tuesday is the end of Kyle Braxton and the start of my new life… My new identity… whatever that is.  I’m going to bury Kyle on Tuesday…” he said, furrowing his brow and looking at Heath with eyes full of hurt and pain.  He was struggling to put his feelings about it into words, and not doing a very good job of it. “I didn’t… I didn’t have a choice …I didn’t… I didn’t know that I was stealing Kyle’s name and family… I didn’t know that you weren’t mine… but I owe it to him now to say thank you… and to give him back his name and the family that he should have had… You’re his, not mine.”

“We’re yours too!” said Heath, looking at him with a worried expression. “We might not be blood, but we’ll always be family!”

Josh nodded in agreement and said, “We’ve never been related, but that doesn’t stop me thinking of you all as family.”

Kyle shook his head sadly and stared at his beer bottle, absently picking at the label, as he mulled things over. “I just need to make my peace with him… and tell him that I’m sorry…” He started to blink furiously, to stop from crying, as tears began to well up in his eyes.

“What do you have to be sorry about?” asked Heath, getting even more worried. Kyle’s good mood from earlier was long gone now and he could see how much he was struggling with all of this.

Kyle gave a heavy sigh. “It should have been me in that grave and not him…” he said in a small quiet voice, keeping his eyes fixed on the torn label on his bottle.  “I mean… He actually had family out here… He had brothers… and people who cared about him.  I was just some kid that no-one wanted… just left to rot in that basement… No-one would have missed me if they’d killed me instead.”

Heath looked at him wide-eyed in shock and managed to stutter a reply. “Mate… That… That’s not how it is!”

“Yes it is” said Kyle, with a quiet and distant sounding voice. “It’s pretty obvious that there’s no-one looking for me… All that news coverage and no-one has come forward… There’s no family out there desperately looking for their long lost son.  Either I was born in that basement… probably an accident… some poor girl raped and murdered… or my parents gave me away.” He glanced at the shocked expressions on both Heath and Josh’s faces and began to laugh a little bitterly. “What?! …I can’t be the only one that’s thought it?!”

“Mate, you don’t know anything for sure yet!” said Heath.

“No, but it seems less and less likely that I’m gonna get some fairy-tale ending” he said, smirking at them sarcastically. “I was probably conceived on film, for all I know! One of those special ‘home movies’ they loved to make, and then some poor girl probably squeezed me out on that basement floor… Maybe she even bled to death… Who knows!”

“You don’t know…” Josh started to say, but Kyle interrupted him.

“No, Josh! You don’t know! You don’t know what that place was like!” he yelled, suddenly getting to his feet. Josh was a little startled by the sudden movement, and shifted towards Heath, shuffling on his bum. Kyle continued his rant, standing over both Heath and Josh, and yelling in their faces. “That place was hell on earth. They murdered kids in that house! I saw some things that no little kid should ever have to see! …Things happened to me in that house that… that… I saw them do things!…” He covered his face with both hands and gave a loud anguished groan. He couldn’t say the words out loud. He ran his tongue over his teeth and thought about the threat that Simon had made to him that day. He’d never told anyone for fear that Simon would come and get him, just like he’d promised. He hadn’t even told the detectives the other day. How pathetic was that?!  A grown man afraid that his childhood tormentor would come and cut his tongue out?! He took a deep shuddering breath, and sat down again beside Josh, pulling his arms across his chest protectively, and clenching his jaw tight as he tried to calm his breathing. He wanted to cover his mouth, but he was fighting the urge, in an act of defiance. He needed to say the words out loud, once and for all, but it was hard to break those defences down after all these years. He could see that Heath was staring at him and Josh was faced in his direction. Both seemed stunned into silence. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath in. “I saw them… I saw them cut out a boy’s tongue” he said through gritted teeth, shaking and bursting into tears. “He choked on his own blood!…” he cried.

“Oh God!” said Heath, as he crawled over to him and threw his arms around him. He pulled him in so his head was resting on his chest, and he could feel Kyle’s body shaking violently as he gave in to his need to cry. Heath wondered how much worse this whole sad story was going to get. How had Kyle survived that house and come out of it even vaguely sane?!

“They cut it out in front of me!” he sobbed, clinging onto Heath’s body tightly. “I can’t get it out of my head.” he said, shaking his head violently. “It just doesn’t go away!”

“I’m so sorry” mumbled Josh, staring with eyes wide with shock, “I had no idea!” He could hear Kyle crying softly, and Heath repeating “It’s okay” to him, over and over. “It’s okay, mate, it’s okay…”

After a few minutes, Kyle pulled away from the hug and wiped at his tears, feeling embarrassed to have made such a show of himself in front of Josh. At least he couldn’t see him, he thought to himself. He looked at him and couldn’t help but laugh. It was clear that Josh was incredibly uncomfortable with the whole situation and had absolutely no idea where to put himself. He’d never seen anyone fidget so much in his life! He shook his head at himself a little, wondering why he kept exploding like this, and if he’d ever feel ‘normal’ again. His emotions were just so close to the surface these days, and he felt like he could laugh or cry at any moment. He hoped that the funeral might actually help to give him some sense of closure and let him move on with rebuilding his life. He needed to say goodbye to that part of himself, the part that thought he was still ‘Kyle’, and begin to form a new identity. It was time to let go.

“It’s okay, Josh” he said, reaching over to pat him on the shoulder. “No more crying, or tantrums, I promise!” he said, giving a nervous chuckle. “I’ll be on my best behaviour on Tuesday!”

 

 

*****

“I don’t think that’s the way it is at all!” said Zac, giving Hunter a serious look and shaking his head at him. “Not from what I’ve read anyway.”

“But he’s been pretending to be someone he’s not all this time?!” asked Hunter, looking back and forth between Zac and Leah with a confused expression. “Why would he do that?! …I mean it just seems a bit suss to me…”

“I think it’s a bit more complicated than that” said Alf, looking up from his paper and giving Hunter a disapproving look. “And we should probably all be minding our own business…” he started to say.

“It doesn’t sound complicated to me!” said VJ, bouncing over to the table and leaning with one hand on the back of Hunter’s chair. “How can you not know what your name is?! I think he’s just a liar and now he’s been found out!”

“Yeah, I mean, he just showed up and told them he was Kyle Braxton!” said Hunter, nodding his head at VJ. “Then they find the real Kyle buried in a shallow grave! …I mean how do we know that he didn’t do it?!”

“Yeah” said VJ, giving Hunter a mischievous look, and starting to laugh, “We’ll probably find out that Hunter isn’t really Hunter… and he’s buried some other poor kid in a shallow grave out in the bush!”

“That’s not funny!” said Zac, getting off the couch and joining them at the table. He looked quite upset and gave both Hunter and VJ a stern look, shaking his head at them in a disappointed sort of way. “Can you think before you speak please, VJ? You too, Hunter!”

VJ’s face fell as he realised what he’d said. Denny’s murder was still something that they were coming to terms with, and talking about bodies being buried in shallow graves probably wasn’t the most considerate thing in the world. “Sorry Zac! I didn’t think!” he said, with an apologetic shrug of his shoulders. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Yeah, sorry” mumbled Hunter, turning his attention back to his cereal.

“I think you should think about more people than me” he said, putting his hand on his step-son’s shoulder. “Kyle Braxton is going through an incredibly tough time at the moment… and I don’t think any of us should be making jokes about it!”

“But I just don’t understand how he could have thought that he was someone he wasn’t” said Hunter, looking back up at Zac for an explanation. “I mean… why would he lie if he wasn’t hiding something bad?”

Josh and Evie suddenly appeared at the door, and it was clear that Josh wasn’t happy. He’d overheard the conversation from outside the door and he couldn’t hide the fact that it had made him angry “He hasn’t been lying!” said Josh scowling in Hunter’s direction, as they walked in. Leah had invited them for breakfast, and they were meant to be going to the city with Oscar after lunch. “He didn’t know that he wasn’t Kyle.” he said, shaking his head adamantly, “He didn’t know!”.

“Huh?” replied Hunter, still none the wiser. “How can you not know who you are?!”

Evie pursed her lips, and shook her head at Hunter disapprovingly, as she helped Josh find a seat at the dining table. “It’s very complicated” she said, as she slid into the chair beside Josh and poured them both a glass of water.

“Well he’s either lying or he’s nuts!” said VJ, looking around the table and laughing. “I mean… you can’t just decide that you’re someone else one day! What if I just started telling everyone that I was Hunter King?!” he said, giggling a little.

“Shut up!” said Josh, growling in VJ’s direction and flushing bright red in anger, “You have no idea what he’s been through… so just shut up!” He couldn’t get the sound of Kyle crying last night out of his head, and he couldn’t stop thinking about that other boy having his tongue cut out. There was nothing funny about any of this!

“Josh!” said Leah, putting her hand on Josh’s shoulder, “Calm down… It’s just hard for people to understand.” She glared at VJ and gestured with her head in a way that told VJ that he should apologise. “VJ didn’t mean to upset you, did he?” she said in a deliberately leading way.

“No… I…” said VJ, starting to apologise.

“No! He’s calling Kyle a liar…” said Josh, turning his head towards Leah beside him. “…And that is so far from the truth it’s not even funny” he said, looking decidedly upset. “He didn’t know who he was… other than what they told him.”

“The people who had him? Those Hames’ people?” asked Leah, sitting down on the empty chair beside him and resting her head on her hand. She’d read all the news articles and it had seemed to her that Kyle was the victim in all of this. She couldn’t get the image of him as a little child out of her head. He just looked so small and frightened. “They told him he was Kyle?” she asked.

Josh tried to look in Leah’s direction as best he could, and nodded, “He was this poor little kid that they kept locked in a basement for years, who didn’t even have a name. Then one day, they let him out and they told him ‘Your name is Kyle Braxton’. That’s what he was led to believe… I mean how was he to know any different?! Does anyone really know who they are? …It’s your parents who tell you that!” He swung his head in an attempt to look in Hunter’s direction. “Hunter! You, more than anyone should know that! You didn’t even know that you had a dad until not too long ago! …We all just believe what we’re told! …I mean... I didn’t know that Casey was my brother!”

Hunter looked at Leah a little sheepishly, and then back at Josh, and said “I suppose… but… what about this other kid?! The real Kyle Braxton… I mean… what happened him?!”

Josh blew out a big breath and ran his fingers through his hair to brush it back from his face. “He was in that house too… Those Hames people killed him…” he said, wavering a little. This stuff was so horrible to talk about, and he was still reeling a little from the conversation in the garden last night. Truth be told, it had left him a bit shaken.

Evie gave his hand a little squeeze and jumped in. “It looks like they were going to get in trouble with DoCS because they had to hand Kyle back over to them… but the real Kyle was dead… so they had a bit of a problem.” She looked at Leah and shook her head at her sadly. “They convinced that little boy that they kept in the basement that his name was Kyle. He didn’t know any different… He doesn’t know what his real name is… or who his parents were… or where he really came from…. It’s so horrible, Leah!”

“Can you imagine how hard it is?!” said Josh, shaking his head in wonder, “How scary?! He’s spent the last 13 years thinking that he was Kyle Braxton… and building a life for himself based on that lie.” He shook his head and gave a sad sigh. “He thought he’d managed to find his family… tracking Brax, and Heath, and Casey down, and building a relationship with them… I mean… Imagine never having a family and then you find them… and then you find out that they’re not really yours… He has nothing left…”

Zac shook his head, trying to imagine what Kyle’s life had been like, and wondering what it would be like to suddenly have your whole identity ripped away from you like this. “How’s he doing?” asked Zac, genuinely concerned for him. “How’s he coping with all of this?”

“Not great” said Josh, answering honestly. “None of this is very easy.  Having everything out in the open like this and everyone talking about him is hard… And the funeral is tomorrow, for the other Kyle… which is just weird.”

“They’re having a funeral?!” asked Alf, sounding shocked and surprised. “Here in the Bay?!”

Josh nodded and said, “Yeah, it’ll just be a small gathering. I’m helping out… me and Andy… They’re going to bury him beside Casey and Rocco… It’s just so weird…”

Alf nodded in agreement. “I’d like to go” he said, “Show my respect… Do you reckon that’d be alright?”

Josh shrugged, unsure of what to say. “Think you’d need to ask Heath” he said, “I think they wanted it to be a private funeral… keep it small…”

“You pass on my best wishes then” said Alf, setting his paper down. He gave Hunter and VJ a scolding look and shook his head at them. “You young fellas should apologise to Josh here. You should be ashamed of yourselves talking about Kyle that way. That poor bloke is going through a tough enough time without you two galahs gossiping about him and jumping to conclusions!”

The two boys muttered their apologies in a very half-hearted sort of way and VJ sat down at the table and started buttering toast. He and Hunter exchanged glances and smirked a little when they thought no-one was looking.

Staring off into the distance in a sad way, Alf said “Burying any child is hard…”

“Oh hey!” came a voice from outside, grabbing everyone’s attention. “Do you need something? …No? …Okay …well that was rude!” Everyone had stopped talking and turned to look at the door. Oscar walked in, shaking his head and muttering to himself, and then looked up at everyone around the breakfast table. He’d just come back from his morning run and was still breathless and sweaty. He gave Leah a quizzical look. “Phoebe was just standing outside the door…” he said, pointing with his thumb over his shoulder, “…but she ran off when I asked her what she wanted.”

“Ah yeah, she’s renting one of the vans” said Alf, picking up his newspaper again, “Seems her and that Ash fella have had a falling out.”

“Wonder what she wanted?” said Leah, getting up to go check on the food that she had in the oven. “Josh, are you staying for lunch? It’s moussaka!” she called to him as she opened the oven door.

“Uh yeah… that’d be great… thanks…” said Josh, continuing to stare off towards the door, and wondering what Phoebe had been playing at. Had she been standing out there listening to the conversation?! Why was she being so weird?! He wondered whether he should tell Kyle and Heath when he got home or just let it go…

[Ludub]

Thanks once again to everyone for their incredibly kind comments  Really hope you like this chapter! 

WARNING: VERY ADULT THEMES!

 

Chapter 24

 

“Hey baby!” said, Tamara, climbing onto the bed, and crawling up to sit beside him. She pulled in close to him, pressing her body in close to his, and leant her head on his shoulder. He had Noah lying sleeping on his chest, and there was a faraway expression on his face like he was lost in a world of his own. “You okay?” she asked, taking his hand in hers and intertwining her fingers with his.

“Mmm” replied Kyle, nodding slowly with a dazed and distant look in his eyes. “Just tired” he said, with a little sigh. He gazed down at the sleeping baby, softly snuffling against his chest, and then turned to look at her with a questioning look. “I’ve been thinking…” he said.

“Ooh… I wouldn’t do that!“ she said, giving him a little smirk, “You’ll hurt yourself!” She knew it was a stupid joke but she wanted to try to lighten the mood somehow.

“Funny!” he said, rolling his eyes and shaking his head at her. He didn’t mind her joking around most of the time but he wanted to be serious right now. “I’ve been thinking… What would we do if someone just took him?” he asked her, feeling a little sick at the thought of it. “I mean, what would we actually do? What would be the steps that we’d take to find him?”

She glanced at her tiny little baby, nestled safely in her husband’s arms, and felt her stomach give a terrible lurch even just thinking about it. “Uh…” she stammered, “uh… well we’d call the police, wouldn’t we?!”

“Exactly…” said Kyle, nodding and looking back at Noah’s peaceful and sleepy little face as he stirred and gave a big yawn. “So there’d be police reports, wouldn’t there?”

Tamara nodded and gently stroked the top of Noah’s little head, smoothing his dark hair, and feeling nervous at the thought of ever not knowing where he was. “Yeah, that would be the first thing.” she said, nodding to herself. “Then they’d put out an amber alert and it would be all over the news” she said, staring off into space herself as she thought through the likely chain of events. “And the police would probably bring us in for questioning…”

“So… If the police really think that I was abducted… why wouldn’t there be any of that for me?” he said, blinking furiously, and wiping angrily at the few stray tears that were rolling down his cheeks. “They’d have found something by now.” he said, shrugging his shoulders sadly. “I mean I know that they didn’t have a lot of that stuff twenty years ago, but… there’d be police reports at least… Something!”

She reached out and turned his face towards her, looking into his sad brown eyes, and gave him a long lingering kiss. “You have to stop torturing yourself” she said, tilting her head at him. “I can’t stand to see you like this!”

“I can’t stop” he said, wiping again at his tears, and looking back down at Noah. “It’s just whirring round and round in my head, Tam! …I can’t stop thinking about it! I need answers! …Even if they’re not the ones I’m hoping for! …I just need to know.”

“They said it can take time” said Tamara, giving him a little smile and planting a soft little kiss on his shoulder. “We can’t give up hope! They’ll find something soon… and who knows… maybe there are people out there who’ve been searching for you!” she said, hoping that her voice wouldn’t betray how worried she was for him. Her worst fear was that they might never find anyone… or get any answers.

“I doubt it” he said, shaking his head. “I just don’t see it.”

He gently lifted Noah’s sleepy little body, and lay him down in his cot beside the bed, stroking his little tummy, and caressing the side of his chubby little face. With a heavy sigh, he lay back with his hand behind his head, stretching out and staring at the ceiling.  Tamara pulled in close beside him with her head on his chest and she began to trace patterns with her fingers on his skin. As they lay there, cuddled close together in comfortable silence, she listened to his heart beating, and he watched the rise and fall of Noah’s little chest in the cot beside the bed. He glanced at Tamara as she lay there beside him and he thought how nice it would be if they could just lie there together like that forever. If there was no world outside these walls, no memories of the life that had come before, and no fears for the future that lay ahead. Just him, his beautiful wife, and his tiny baby son. The only three people in existence… That would be just fine by him.

“I think the Someones need to find a new surname” sighed Kyle, turning to kiss Tamara gently on the top of the head. “Mr Someone needs a new first name too… I don’t think John is working out too well for him.”

 

*****

 

“Um… This is a really hard thing to have to do.” said Heath, staring out at the very small gathering by the graveside. “As you all know…I didn’t know my little brother” he said, glancing at Kyle in concern, before continuing to read from the piece of paper in his hand. “I didn’t know my little brother at all. I never got the chance to meet him because some monsters stole him from this world before he even got a chance to make his mark. He was only a little kid!” His voice broke on the last few words, and he took a deep breath and blew it out again to regain his composure. He glanced at the faces gathered around him, thinking how sad it was that this little boy didn’t have a single person that he knew at his funeral. He stared back down at the sheet of paper, fluttering in his shaking hands, and continued. “Uh… I…” stuttered Heath, trying to find his place again. With a heavy sigh, he folded the piece of paper and turned to look at the small coffin. “All I really want to say is that none of this is fair! He was only a little kid and he shouldn’t have died the way that he did! He died a terrible death! …I would have liked to know him… I know that me and my brothers would have liked to know him, and to know the man that he would have become, but he was taken from us.” He turned to look at Kyle, who was sitting beside Tamara a short distance away, and gripping her hand for dear life. He was staring at the ground, and the Summers were sitting behind him, with David leaning forward with his hand on Kyle’s shoulder for support. Heath gave Tamara a worried look, and nodded for her to check that Kyle was okay. He looked very pale and shaky. Heath looked around the other mourners, spotting a lot of friendly faces, and a few people that he wouldn’t have expected to turn up. Marilyn and John were there, which he thought was kind of them, and Irene had come to support Bianca. Alf Stewart had spoken to him yesterday, saying that he’d always had a lot of time for Brax, and asking if it was okay to come and pay his respects too. Heath had been quite touched by that. Leah and Zac had come, which he really hadn’t expected, but he was grateful that they hadn’t brought their gaggle of teenagers with them on this occasion. Evie and Josh were sitting beside Kyle, and Ash was sitting with Billie and Kat towards the back.  Even Nate was there. It was a bigger affair than they’d originally intended. He scanned the crowd and was relieved to see that Phoebe wasn’t there. “What those people did was…” he continued, blinking back a few tears as his emotions started to get the better of him. “I don’t even have a word for it... What they did was…” he trailed off, unable to finish his sentence. He looked at Bianca, and his face began to crumple, as his eyes filled up with tears. “I’m sorry, I can’t…” he said, beginning to cry. All the stress from the last few weeks had finally caught up with him and he just felt a bit overwhelmed by it all.

Bianca stood up and held her hand out to him and brought him back to sit down beside her. “You did really well” she whispered to him, giving his knee a little squeeze and kissing him lightly on the cheek.

The funeral director stood up and said, “Does anyone else wish to speak?” glancing around the gathered mourners. He was well aware of the unusual circumstances of this funeral, and just how sensitive the whole situation was, so he was keen to move things on if possible, but he still had to be mindful of normal proceedings.

No-one answered at first, and he was about to move on to the part where they lowered the coffin, when a woman’s voice said, “I’d like to say something if that’s okay?”

Marilyn teetered up to the front on stiletto heels that kept getting stuck in the grass, and faced the gathered crowd. John gave her an exasperated look and shook his head at her in an embarrassed sort of way. “I didn’t know little Kyle either” she said, shaking her head sadly. “None of us did… But as many of you know… I’m quite a spiritual person.” she said, giving a little smile and looking around the confused looking faces. Since getting back from her world travels she’d been talking more and more about her deepened understanding of the universe and how her time spent in India had allowed her to unlock her spiritual connection with both the living and the dead. “You’re probably all wondering why I’m up here?” John made a face at her and motioned with his head for her to come and sit down again.

Heath shrugged at Bianca, and gave Marilyn a thoroughly bemused look. In a way, he was grateful that the mad little hippy was breaking the tension a little bit, and he could see that even Kyle was slightly amused by it, but he had no idea what she thought she was doing! It wasn’t like she was part of the family and she hadn’t even been invited. She had no real business getting up there!

“Yes, well…” said Marilyn, beginning to look a little embarrassed and as though she might now regret her decision to get up here. “As I said, I didn’t know little Kyle… but he came to me in a… I wouldn’t exactly say a vision… It was more of a feeling…” She looked at Kyle, as he stared at her, and shook his head in wonder, clearly thinking that she was a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic. She walked over and reached for his hand. “Little Kyle has been watching over you all these years… Like a protector… or a guardian angel…” She gave him a big smile and her eyes filled up with tears. “He’s the reason that you got out of that house… He wanted some good to come out of his death. He wanted you to have the life that he didn’t get to have!” She turned and smiled at the coffin.

Kyle looked up at her in total shock, and opened his mouth to speak, but the words just wouldn’t come. A swirl of emotion was overwhelming him. Part of him wanted to believe it, needing so badly to believe that Kyle wasn’t angry with him for stealing his identity, and making it out of that house alive when he didn’t. But another part of him, the cynical Kyle that knew that there was no afterlife, was seething inside. ‘Little Kyle’ wasn’t waiting on the other side, smiling down at him, and wishing him well! He wasn’t anywhere! His little life had just been snuffed out, and taken from him, and all that was left of him was the bag of bones gathered up and stuffed in that coffin in front of them. Trying to pretend otherwise was just a lie, and very hurtful at that. He didn’t understand how people like this, these hippy dippy healer types, thought that it was okay to spin such webs of manipulative lies, and play with people’s weaknesses and insecurities in such a shameless way. It was cruel. Like telling someone who’s dying that they’re going to get a miracle cure if they just touch this relic, or bathe in that sacred water, or pray to whoever… It hurts… That’s what these people don’t understand… Those lies really hurt because they give people false hope where there is none. Harsh reality then hits so much harder when the fantasy finally comes crashing down. He was getting more and more angry by the second.

She gave him a big ridiculous smile and patted his hand. “He wants you to be happy.” she said, “I can feel his presence.”

Kyle’s heart was racing now as an anger was building in his chest. He didn’t want to shout at Marilyn, and he’d promised himself that he’d hold it together, at least for the day of the funeral, but this was just too much! He couldn’t deal with all this mumbo jumbo, no matter how well-meant it was! He started biting his tongue, digging his teeth into his own flesh until he could taste blood, just like he’d done as a child.

“Okay, that’s enough!” said Heath, picking up on Kyle’s obvious distress and taking Marilyn by the elbow to steer her back towards John. “Thanks Marilyn” he said to her, throwing John an exasperated look and rolling his eyes at him.

Kyle sat forward with his head in his hands, and stared at the ground, as Tamara gently rubbed his back in an attempt to calm him down. He was clearly close to a panic attack and he was doing some breathing exercises that his counsellor had been teaching him. He was feeling such a range of emotions in this moment though, that it was difficult for him to know what to do.

“Okay, well…” said the funeral director taking his place at the front. “Now that everyone has spoken… If you’d all like to stand?” He pushed a button and the coffin began to lower with soft instrumental music playing in the background.

Kyle stood up, holding hands with Tamara, and fixed his eyes on the grey coffin as it disappeared into the earth. He thought how easily that could have been him in there instead of this other Kyle. The Hames’ could easily have murdered him instead and no-one would have missed him, but instead they killed this other little boy, and he had simply filled the void that he’d left behind. Now he would have to try to carve out a space of his own in the world, whatever shape that happened to take. Watching the coffin, he felt like he was burying a part of himself, like half of him was being ripped away. He really didn’t know how he was going to start again. He’d been going through the motions for the last few weeks, but today it had all become so much more real for him, and he couldn’t pretend it wasn’t happening anymore. He had just buried Kyle Braxton. He had actually watched Kyle Braxton’s funeral. There was no going back from here!

He looked at the arm of his suit jacket where he knew his ‘All Or Nothing’ tattoo was, and he clamped his hand around it, squeezing hard and trying to hurt himself. He imagined digging his fingernails into his own flesh and peeling it away. Of course, if he did that, he thought, he’d never be able to stop there. He’d like to remove all his skin like a snake and simply walk away.

He glanced over at Heath, suddenly realising that he was staring at him intently, and gave a very half-hearted smile. It was the best he could manage in the circumstances.

Heath got up to thank everyone for coming and to let them know that there would be some sandwiches and coffee back at their house if anyone wanted to come back. As he looked around the sad looking crowd, he suddenly became aware of a face at the back that he didn’t recognise. He craned his head to try to see who it was and then he saw the cameras around his neck!

“Hey!” he shouted, as he saw the man lift the camera and start snapping photos. “What are you doing?!” he yelled again, rushing towards him.

The man continued to snap photos of the funeral scene, ignoring the fact that Heath was fast approaching, and that the crowd had turned to glare at him angrily. As Heath approached, the man held his hands up and said, “If you touch me or my camera, I’ll sue! Just try me!”

Heath grabbed the front of his shirt and growled, “You can’t come to a private funeral and start taking photos! What kind of sicko are you?!”

“Just a journalist doing his job” said the man, showing a name badge inside his jacket. “And this is a public space so I can take as many photos as I like! …Now if you don’t let me go, I’ll have you for assault!”

“Heath! Let him go!” said Kat, suddenly appearing at his side. “It’s really not worth it!” she said, gently pulling at his arm and shaking her head at him.

Heath reluctantly let him go and the man dusted himself off with a self-satisfied look on his face. He backed away smiling smugly at him and then turned to leave. “Flamin’ mongrel!” exclaimed Alf, standing beside Heath and shaking his head in disgust as they watched the journalist walk away. “What is the world coming to?!” he asked, in an exasperated tone.

Heath blew out a big breath, trying to calm himself down, and turned to check where Kyle was. He could see Tamara standing with Noah in his pram, staring off into the distance with a look of panic on her face. Kyle was nowhere to be seen! Suddenly she spun round and made eye contact with him, gesturing with her arms that she didn’t know what to do. “He took off!” she shouted to him, with big eyes full of fear and worry.

 

*****

“I’ll check out the back” said Heath, lifting Harley off his hip and handing him to Bianca as they walked into the living-room. “Maybe he just came home” he said, looking worried and heading quickly towards the back door.

“I’ll check the bedroom” said Tamara, parking Noah’s pram beside Bianca, and heading out into the hallway. She opened the door to their room, expecting it to be empty, but there he was sitting on their bed. “Baby?” she said, cocking her head to one side sympathetically and looking at him with concern. “Baby? Are you okay?”

He looked up at her and gave her a weak little smile. “Sorry, Tam” he said quietly, tugging at the sleeves of his shirt, and pulling himself to the edge of the bed to get up. “I’ll come out now…  I just needed to get out of there.” he said, sounding tired.

He stood up, reaching for her hand, and started to move towards the door. She pulled him back and put her arms around his neck, standing on her tiptoes to give him a kiss. “I’m so proud of you” she said, giving him another little peck on the lips. “Today was such a big hurdle… I can’t believe how strong you are… and how brave.”

“Stop!” he said, clamping his eyes shut and shaking his head. “I’m not strong… or brave!” he said, sighing and turning to sit back down on the bed. He put his head in his hands and sat slumped in a defeated sort of way on the edge on the bed. “I’m pathetic” he said in a small and broken voice.

It was then that she noticed the strong smell of bleach. She looked at him in horror and wondered what he’d done.  He was still wearing his suit so it seemed unlikely that he’d have had a shower and put it back on again. She sat down beside him and reached for his hand. It was then that she noticed how rough and raw the skin on his hand was. She picked it up to look at it. It was bright red, as though it had been burnt, and there were scratches all over the top of his hand like he’d taken a wire brush to it. She let out a gasp of shock.

He lifted his head and turned to look at her. “I’m sorry” he said, wiping at a few stray tears that had welled up in his eyes. “That journalist… It’s all going to be in the papers again… It’s never going to end, any of this…” he said, shaking his head and looking away from her. “It was just too much”

“Can I see?” she asked, cautiously starting to unbutton the cuff of his shirt. He didn’t pull away but he didn’t look at her either. She undid the buttons and began to roll up the sleeve of his shirt, trying to be as gentle as she could. As the tattoo on his arm became visible she let out a gasp and covered her mouth with her hand. “Baby! What have you done to yourself?!” she cried, gently touching his skin with her finger tips. The smell of bleach was overpowering now.

“It helps” he said, through gritted teeth, wincing a little as her fingers made contact with his burnt and rubbed raw flesh.

“Baby, you’ve burned yourself!” she said, beginning to cry and looking at the red raw skin on her husband’s arm. He’d obviously scrubbed long and hard at the tattoo and the skin was a deep red colour, more like raw meat than his normal sallow skin tone. It looked incredibly painful. She could still see the black ink as clear as day though, so he hadn’t been successful in scrubbing it away. “Baby, your poor arm!” she said, peeling the sleeve back further to check the extent of the injury. “Why would you do this to yourself?!” she cried.

He continued to look at the wall, refusing to make eye contact with her, and mumbled, “I don’t know, Tam.” He let out a big sigh and said, “It’s just… It’s like a release…”

“We have to get this looked at” she said, leaning in to give him a light kiss on the cheek. “These look like chemical burns… I need to get Nate to take a look.” she said, getting to her feet and heading towards the door. She was pretty sure that Nate would have arrived by now and she could maybe get him to come take a look without anyone else needing to know.

“No!” he said, roughly tugging at the sleeve of his shirt to cover his arm again, and looking at her in a wounded sort of way. It was like what she was suggesting was some sort of betrayal of trust. “It’ll be fine, Tam… I don’t need Nate!”

“Baby” she said, giving him a scolding sort of look, “I think it’s going to blister! If you think I’m going to let you do this to yourself and not do anything about it, you can think again!” She walked back over and gently rolled up his sleeve again, treating him a little bit like she would a small child that was throwing a tantrum. She looked at his arm again, so red and inflamed, and said, “Now, I’m going to get Nate, and you’re going to let him treat you…”

Kyle nodded and stared at the floor, slumping again, in a defeated sort of way. He knew that she was right and that he needed help. He sat and waited while Tamara went to get Nate.

“Let me see this arm then…” said Nate, walking in with a concerned look on his face. He couldn’t hide his shock when he saw what Kyle had done. Tamara hadn’t gone into details so he hadn’t been expecting anything of this scale. She’d simply said that Kyle had burned himself. These were deliberate and extensive chemical burns and abrasions. Nate crouched down beside the bed, and tentatively turned Kyle’s arm as gently as he could to get a better look at the extent of the damage. Kyle sat staring at the wall in silence, clenching his jaw and wincing in pain, but refusing to look at Nate. “I think I need to get you to hospital” he said, shaking his head and looking up at Kyle with a worried expression. “These are pretty bad burns!”

“Aw mate…” exclaimed Heath, suddenly appearing in the doorway, and standing with his arms folded across his chest.  With his hand covering his mouth in shock, he gasped, “What have you done?!” He’d seen Tamara come to get Nate so he’d been worried enough to follow them.

“Get out!” growled Kyle, glaring at Heath and yanking his arm away from Nate. “Get out! All of you!” he yelled.

“I can’t let you hurt yourself like this and just walk away” said Nate, in a slow calm voice. “I have a duty of care… I need to get you to the hospital so we can get this treated properly.”

“You should listen to Nate” said Heath, eyeing Kyle’s damaged arm with alarm. “You really need that looked at, mate!”

He looked down at the arm in question, and then glared back up at the three worried faces all staring down at him. He felt his blood boil. People had been controlling him his whole life! He’d spent nearly fourteen years, as far as he knew, locked in a tiny damp cell, and being raped and brutalised at will. He’d been handed to foster parents, without any say in the matter, and expected to just adjust to things. Danny Braxton had used him for his own selfish gains, and like a total idiot, he’d allowed him to. Even Brax had thought he could tell him what to do and he’d ended up mixed up in all sorts of things because of these ‘brothers’ of his. He was sick of it. He’d buried Kyle Braxton today, and with him, all sense of his own identity... The question was, what kind of pathetic loser had ‘Kyle’ left behind?!

“Fine!” snapped Kyle, getting up and violently tugging the arm of his shirt sleeve down. “Let’s go to hospital then!” he growled at Nate. “Just me and you!” he said, pointing at himself and then Nate. “You can stay here!” he snarled at Tamara, before charging out past them, and grabbing his keys off the table by the door. The guests that had arrived simply saw a grey blur, as Kyle ran out past them in his suit, and they all stood there staring in shock as the door slammed shut.

Tamara and Heath exchanged worried glances, unsure of what to do. Nate patted Tamara on the shoulder, giving each of them a sympathetic look, and said, “I’ll look after him… I think he just needs a bit of space… okay?”

Nate followed Kyle out to the car and got in the passenger side, as Kyle was already in the driving seat, and aggressively revving the engine. “They’re just worried about you” he said to Kyle, as they pulled out of the driveway at high speed. “We all are!” said Nate, gripping onto the door handle and braking instinctively with his feet. He just hoped that they’d both make it to the hospital in one piece and they wouldn’t end up having an accident en route, with the way that Kyle was driving.

Kyle snorted at him, giving him a dismissive sort of smirk, and breathed heavily as he wrenched the car round corners in an angry way.  “You shouldn’t” he said, picking up speed in a way that seemed angry and reckless, “I’m not worth caring about.”

[Ludub]

Thanks everyone for the kind comments!  I'm on holidays at the moment so it's given me loads of time to write. So here's another chapter! Hope you like it!

WARNING: ADULT THEMES

 

Chapter 25

 

“It’s fine, Nate” said Kyle, looking a little embarrassed as he walked back up to the front door with his arm bandaged up. “You don’t need to escort me home…“

He’d calmed down shortly after arriving at the hospital, and allowed himself to be treated properly. They’d said that he would heal pretty well and that he was very lucky not to have more serious burns. A follow-up appointment had been made for him with the psychiatrist that he’d seen when he was in the last time, but they’d allowed him to go home.

“I just want a word with Tamara” said Nate, giving him a look that said that he wasn’t taking no for an answer. “They said you could come home, but only if there’s someone keeping an eye on you!”  Kyle just nodded, feeling too tired to argue with him, and opened the door.

There was no-one in the living-room, but the placed looked like a bombsite, with half-eaten sandwiches on side plates and coffee cups sitting around everywhere.

“Everyone must have gone home already” said Kyle, glancing around the room, and feeling a little bit guilty for leaving Heath and Tamara to deal with everyone. He heard voices out in the garden, so he motioned with his head for Nate to follow him out and walked out towards the garden.

Tamara was sitting out at the patio table with Bianca, and the Summers, and was breastfeeding Noah. She had a light white cloth draped over him to protect him from the evening sun, and was chatting with Bianca and Jenny, while David sat back and read his book. Tamara looked up at him when he walked into the garden, unable to hide the hurt expression on her face. He gave her an apologetic smile and walked towards her. She looked away and continued to talk to Bianca in a forced sort of way, making it clear that she was upset with him. He arrived at the table and they all looked up at him, with worry clearly etched on their faces.

He gave them all a tired little smile, and knelt down in front of Tamara. “I’m really sorry, Tam” he said, giving Noah’s little foot a gentle squeeze. “I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that!” he said, shaking his head apologetically. “None of this is your fault, I shouldn’t be taking it out on you!”

She looked down at him, giving him a wounded sort of look, and said, “I’m just worried about you.” She glanced at his bandaged arm, and said, “You really scared me… Baby, look what you’ve done to yourself!”

“I know” he said, taking her hand in his and giving it a little kiss. He looked at the bandage on his arm and said, “It was a really stupid thing to do… The doctors said it’ll be okay though… I haven’t done too much damage.”

David shook his head at him a little sadly and gave him a sympathetic smile. “Jenny and I are here if you need to talk to us… We got you through it the last time and we’ll get you through it this time, if you’ll let us support you”

“It won’t be like the last time” said Kyle, shaking his head as though he was trying to convince himself more than them. He stroked the bandage on his arm and gave Tamara a little smile in an attempt to reassure her. “I’m never gonna let it get that bad.” he said to her, before looking up at David, “Not ever again!”

 

*****

“MAN ATTENDS OWN FUNERAL”

Irene held up the tabloid newspaper in disgust, sitting at the breakfast table with Chris. “That poor young fella!” she exclaimed, tutting loudly and holding it for Chris to look at. “That boy’s whole world is falling down round his ears and they’re busy dancing on the rubble!”

Chris took the paper out of Irene’s hands to look at it properly. It had a huge photo of a very distressed looking Kyle on the front page, with two smaller ones of the coffin, and of the Hames’ being taken into custody, handcuffed and looking startled. The article described how Kyle had been living under the false belief that he was ‘Kyle Braxton’ when in reality there was a murdered child by that name buried on the Hames’ property. It outlined how the identity of this imposter, known to locals as Kyle Braxton, was still unknown, and postulated that he might in fact be the offspring of the Hames couple themselves.

Chris finished reading and glanced up at Irene in horror. “You don’t think he is, do you?! …I mean, he couldn’t be theirs, could he?!”

“I guess he could!” said Irene, grimacing at him and then taking a sip from the coffee cup she cradled in both hands. “I hope for his sake that he’s not though!” She didn’t like to think that he was the child of such cruel and evil people.

“This whole thing just seems to be getting worse and worse!” said Chris, picking up his breakfast things and taking them over to the kitchen counter. “What was it like?” he asked, leaning his back against the counter to look back across the room at her.

“What? The funeral?” she asked, shrugging a little. “It was sad, like any funeral, I suppose…”

“Yeah but… I mean…” he said, screwing up his face, “It must be so weird… sort of burying ‘yourself’? …I mean… I can’t imagine finding out that I’m not ‘me’… and then having to bury… ‘me’”

“Well… yeah… That would be weird!” she said, shaking her head and rolling her eyes a little.  “You do know that he didn’t actually bury himself, don’t you, Chris? ...I mean… It was just a little kid with the same name as him.”

“Yeah, course!” said Chris, blushing up a little. If he was honest, he had sort of thought of it as Kyle burying himself. As though he was holding a funeral for himself, like he and the dead boy were somehow the same person… “It must have been hard for him though? I mean… he still doesn’t know what his real name is, does he?”

“No, he doesn’t” said Irene, staring down at the picture of Kyle on the front of the paper. She felt terribly sad for him, especially having seen how upset he was yesterday, and Bianca had certainly seemed quite affected by the whole thing. “That poor boy has been to hell and back by the sounds of things, and having these journos turning up taking pictures isn’t making things any easier! Honestly, Chris, they’re like vultures! They have no shame!”

 

*****

Andy walked up the wooden path from the beach, drying off his hair with his towel and tugging at the T-shirt that he’d just thrown on over wet skin. It was sticking to him a little and making him uncomfortable. He looked up and spotted Josh standing by the railings, and shook his head at himself, as he forgot for a moment and raised his hand to wave. Josh’s blindness still made him a little sad sometimes. He was meant to be meeting Josh for breakfast but he’d lost track of time and he was at least twenty minutes late at this stage. He ran the rest of the way and reached Josh a moment later. “Hey mate” he said, panting a little and putting his hand on Josh’s shoulder to let him know that he was there. “Sorry I’m a bit late.”

“You’re always late” said Josh, turning around to face him. “Why change the habit of a lifetime, eh?” he said, giving him a sarcastic smile.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever!” said Andy, laughing a little and holding out his arm to let Josh link on him. He deliberately bumped him a little with his shoulder to let him know that he’d turned to stand beside him. It was easier for Andy to lead him than to find his own way there with the cane. Josh took his arm and they headed towards the diner. “How was Kyle… y’know… after?” asked Andy.

“Yeah, he’s okay… I think” said Josh, furrowing his brow a little. He couldn’t help being worried about him. Disappearing like that after the funeral yesterday had put everyone on edge, and Evie had seen the large bandage on Kyle’s arm this morning and told him about it. Kyle really didn’t seem to be coping well with things at all, but 'tattle-taling' to Andy didn’t seem right either. Kyle had told him things in confidence and he didn’t feel right about telling anyone else, not even Evie.  “He’s just having a really tough time” he said.

“Yeah, I can’t imagine…” Andy started to say, but he trailed off as something distracted him. “Uhhhh….” he started to say again, trying to pick up his train of thought but he was clearly watching something in the distance.

“Andy?” said Josh, picking up that something wasn’t right.

Andy was too busy watching Phoebe. She was talking to a man outside the diner, down the side by the bins, and in a ridiculously obvious way, she had taken an envelope from him and stuffed it in her bag. It couldn’t have looked more like a poorly executed drug deal had they tried. She’d even looked all around her to make sure that no-one was looking. It was almost cartoonish!

“Um…” said Andy, stopping them in their tracks. “I’ve just seen Phoebe with that Journo guy from yesterday” he said, “I think he just gave her a wad of cash!”

 

 *****

 

“Hello?” said Kyle, sitting perched on the edge of the couch with his phone to his ear, and giving Tamara a very nervous look. He wiped the sweaty palm of his free hand on the leg of his jeans and jittered his knee up and down. His heart was thumping as he looked down at the paper with his photo on the front. He needed desperately to make sure it wasn’t true! “Hello, yes, I’d like to speak to Detective Drazic, please.” he said, with his voice shaking and unable to hide the sheer panic that he was feeling. He grimaced a little, listening to the question at the other end of the line; ‘Who should I say is calling?’ Answering that question wasn’t simple anymore. It was something that other people took for granted but something that sent him into a tailspin now. Who was he? He took a deep breath and answered very quietly, “Um… It’s… It’s um… Tell him it’s ‘about’ Kyle Braxton”.  He couldn’t bring himself to identify himself by that name. The words would have stuck in his throat and choked him. This was the only way that he could get the words out. The person at the other end put him on hold and ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ blared down the line at him. He couldn’t help laughing a little bitterly at their choice of hold music.

“Hello, this is Detective Drazic.” came a voice at the other end of the line. “Kyle Braxton?” he asked, in that soft and sympathetic tone that he’d used throughout the interview.

Kyle flinched at the sound of the name but he knew that that was how he was still legally known, at least for now. Drazic had said that legal proceedings would begin shortly to rebuild him an identity if no family could be found. He would be re-issued with documentation based on the identity that he wanted to create for himself. He would have to choose a name and a birth date, and new identity papers would be issued for him, along with social security numbers, and even a sort of birth certificate for special situations like his. It was a particularly unusual situation so there were some things that didn’t appear to have a precedent, and that he’d have to hire a solicitor to sort for him. They weren’t sure about the legalities of his marriage certificate for example, or the ownership of the businesses acquired through the name Kyle Braxton. It was all very complicated. In any case, at least for the time being, he was still Kyle Braxton in the eyes of the law. Sort of. Things were going to get a lot more complicated now that Kyle’s funeral had taken place!

“Yes, Detective Drazic! Have you seen the papers today?!” he asked, speaking quickly and nearly tripping over his own words. “Is it true?! I need to know! Please don’t say it’s true!”

“Hang on, mate! Hang on!” said Drazic, sounding confused. “I haven’t seen what you’re talking about. What papers?!”

“The local rags ran a story about me… I don’t know if it’s gone national yet… They said that the Hames’ are my parents… That I’m theirs… and that they just used me and gave me away!”

Drazic blew out an exasperated breath and said, “No mate, I can categorically tell you now that you’re not related to either of those sickos! It’s not true! I don’t know where these idiots get their ideas from!”

“How do you know?” asked Kyle, feeling a wave of relief wash over him, and giving Tamara a thumbs up and a sad little nod.

“We ran a DNA test right at the start. You’re not a match for either of them.” he said. “Definitely not.”

Kyle rubbed his face in his hand and let out a loud sigh of relief. “Oh thank god!” he said, feeling his body start to relax a little. He’d felt like every muscle in his body had been pulled tight and his stomach had been doing somersaults since he’d seen that headline. “So if it’s not them… Is there any news at all?” he asked a little sadly, already pretty sure that he knew the answer.

“No, I’m sorry, mate” said Drazic, sounding a little sad for him. “We haven’t been able to find you on any of the child abduction databases.”

“So… I wasn’t abducted then?” he asked, glancing at Tamara who was hanging on his every word and trying to follow the conversation as best she could from Kyle’s responses. He shook his head at her, and shrugged, feeling more than a bit depressed.

“Well, there’s no record of anyone around that timeframe, who would fit your description. At least… not in this country.” He took another deep breath and said, “So we’re extending the search internationally… and we’re um… well… we’re starting to look at murder cases where the body wasn’t recovered.”

Kyle nodded and closed his eyes, thinking that he hadn’t thought of that possibility, but that it made sense. He could have been abducted, rather than murdered, but presumed dead. It seemed like a bit of a long shot but it sounded at least like they hadn’t given up on him… not yet. “Okay, thanks Detective Drazic” said Kyle, “I really appreciate that you’re still trying.”

“Drazic, mate, just call me Drazic.” he said, “You can drop the ‘Detective’”

When Kyle got off the phone he flopped down into the cushions of the sofa and rested his head on his hand. Tamara squeezed in beside him and took his other hand in hers. “Well… That’s a relief isn’t it?” she said, looking up at him, and giving him a little half-smile. She could see how much this whole thing was affecting him, and she wanted to get her hands on that Journalist from yesterday and wring his sorry neck for him.

“Yeah it is” said Kyle, rubbing his chin and staring up at the ceiling as he mulled something over. “To be honest, I should have known that it wasn’t possible… Simon’s thing was little boys… and the younger the better. By the time I left that house, he’d lost interest in me completely.” he said, glancing down at Tamara’s big shocked eyes and wishing that she didn’t have to know all this stuff. He really wanted to go back a few months to when she’d been blissfully ignorant of the miserable life that he’d led as a child and sew his stupid mouth shut. Now that it was out there, he had to tell her everything, and he hated seeing that pained expression on her face when he forced her to see how horrible, and full of monsters, the world really was. “Jessica was someone who liked to watch” he continued. “I really couldn’t see either of them having a normal sexual relationship and having a baby together. It just wasn’t in them.”

Tamara turned, taking his face in her hands, and leaned in to give him a gentle kiss on the lips. “I’m so sorry that all this stuff happened to you” she said, tearing up a little. “I just wanted to tell you that again, in case I haven’t said that enough.”

He gave her a sad little smile and leaned his head against hers. “You just being here is enough” he said.

 

*****

Phoebe sat in the diner, with her bag in her lap, and picked at the fries on her plate nervously. She wasn’t proud of herself… not at all! But what choice did she really have?! At least that’s what she kept trying to tell herself. $400! It wasn’t going to last her long. She wondered what she was going to do when that ran out. She didn’t have a job anymore and she’d been trying to find a new one, but with the charges for the theft of the laptop hanging over her, she wasn’t having much luck. She looked at the newspaper that Charlie, her journalist mate, had given her and felt a terrible pang of guilt for what she’d done. Kyle was one of her oldest friends, and someone that she actually really cared about, and she’d treated him like this?! She shook her head at herself in disgust. She opened her bag and looked at the envelope inside her bag, ripped open at one side so that she’d been able to count the money and make sure that it was all there. She thought about Kyle’s words the other night, “How low can you actually get Pheebs?! …How many people do you want to hurt along the way?!” Was $400 the price that she’d put on her soul?

“Can I get you something else, darl?” asked Irene, clearing away the dishes on the table next to her, and glancing down at the paper on Phoebe’s table. “Oh, you’ve seen it too?!” she said, shaking her head in a disapproving sort of way, “Just a pack of vultures, those journos!”

Phoebe nodded and turned the page, pretending to read an article about a planned expansion of the hospital, and refusing to make eye contact with Irene for fear of crying.

“Okay Darl, well you just shout if you need anything else” said Irene, thinking that Phoebe must be more upset about this whole thing with Kyle than she was letting on. After all, they had been an item once, so it made sense that she’d be affected by it.

Once Irene had gone, she turned back to the front page and peered down at Kyle’s sad and haunted looking eyes. Looking at him, she couldn’t help but feel like she was the worst person in the world. She glanced around the diner and wondered to herself what she was even doing here. She had no friends anymore, just like Heath had said, and no-one really wanted her there. Maybe it was time to cut her losses and move on… but where to?

She picked up her phone and flicked down through the numbers. She’d burnt her bridges with so many people at this stage that she really wasn’t sure where to go or who to turn to. As she scrolled down, her eyes fell on the word “Dad”. Could she really go crawling back to him after all this time… after what he’d done? Was what he’d done really any worse than some of the things she’d done recently? Maybe it was time that she went home? He’d be able to get her a job at least, and she could always live with him until she got herself sorted… She pressed call and waited.

“Dad?” she said, smiling when she heard his voice, “Dad, it’s Phoebe!”

 

*****

 

“What would you think of taking the name Summers?” asked Kyle, lying on the couch with Tamara curled in at his side. “Would that be really weird?” He glanced down at her as she lay with her head on his chest, and he brushed her hair away from her face to see what her reaction was. She looked up at him with eyes shining bright like stars and gave him the biggest smile.

After speaking to Drazic he’d almost resigned himself to the likelihood that they were never going to find his birth family. If he really didn’t have people out there who were looking for him, then he figured that he was going to have to make the most of the family that he did have. When he thought about the love and support that Jenny and David had shown him over the years, and how they’d dealt with all of his issues over those years, he realised that he already had it pretty good. They were better parents than most, and he thought that he’d be proud to take their name. That’s if they didn’t mind.

Tamara sat up and faced him, taking his hand in hers, and looking excited. “I think that’s a lovely idea! I wanted to suggest it …but I wasn’t sure you were ready to go there yet!”

He smiled and gave a relieved sigh. “I was worried you might think it was weird… I mean you’ve only just met them…”

She leaned in, gently caressing the side of his face, and kissed him. “They’re your family!” she said between kisses, “and they’re lovely… and it makes sense.” She took his hand in hers again and started to play with his wedding ring. “Summers! What a beautiful name! I like the sound of that! …Mr and Mrs Summers! …Tamara Summers… and Noah Summers… and…” She turned to look at him again with a quizzical expression on her face, “Have you thought what you want your first name to be?”

He looked a little nervous and bit his bottom lip. “Uh… I think I might actually keep Kyle” he said cautiously and looking at her for approval, “I mean, I just can’t imagine having a different name… I’ve only ever been Kyle… Is that really weird?”

She smiled from ear to ear and threw her arms around his neck. “Baby, you have no idea how happy I am to hear you say that!” She took his face in her hands, leaning in for a lingering kiss, and then leaned her forehead against his. “I love you, Kyle Summers! I love you so much.”

 

*****

 

Phoebe got off the phone, and set it down on the table with a self-satisfied smile on her face, and motioned for Irene to come over and take another order. It was all sorted! She was going home! Her dad was going to make some phone calls and line up a job for her. He had some contacts in a sound recording studio in St Kilda, working with up and coming artists, and he thought he could get her a job there for relatively decent money. One of the 2 bed units in the apartment complex that her dad owned was up for rent, and he’d said that she could take it rent-free until she got herself sorted, so she even had a place to live, and those apartments were super swish! She was leaving in a couple of days once she sorted things out with the police.

“I’ll have a strawberry milkshake and a big slice of mudcake!” said Phoebe, giving Irene a big cheesy grin. Irene gave her a quizzical look, wondering what had caused such a dramatic change in mood, and turned to go and get her order.

She stared down at the newspaper in front of her again and decided to just let all the guilt go. Her dad was right! What was done was done, and she’d be leaving now anyway, and Kyle would never have to see her ever again. Did it really matter? They probably would have found out about the funeral anyway, and Kyle had kind of forced her into it by letting Heath fire her. The more she looked at it, the more she felt that it wasn’t really her fault.

She picked up the newspaper and flicked a few pages forward and started to read with a relieved sigh. She wasn’t really interested in anything that this small town newspaper had to say for itself now, but she was in such a good mood, that she wasn’t really sure what to do with herself.

She suddenly became aware of a child hovering beside her table. She looked up and saw a little girl, about seven years old, licking at an ice cream and eyeing the front of the newspaper with interest. She was standing in a strange way, swaying back and forth, and she had ice cream all around her mouth, making her look sticky and unkempt.

“What do you want, squirt?” asked Phoebe, peeking over the top of the paper at the little girl. She really didn’t like kids and the way this one was staring at her was making her a little uneasy. “What?! Speak up!”

The little girl just continued to stare, unfazed by Phoebe’s unfriendly demeanour, and licked slowly at her ice cream cone. She seemed fixated by the picture on the front of the paper.

“What? You want this?” asked Phoebe, glancing at the picture on the front. “You want my newspaper do you?!” she said, laughing a little at how ridiculous it seemed for a small child to want to read the newspaper. “Here, be my guest!” she said, handing it over and motioning with her head for her to leave her alone now. “Go! …Skidaddle!” she barked at her light-heartedly.

The child snatched the newspaper and ran over to her father who was up at the counter paying for their food. “Look daddy! Look!” she said, tugging at his sleeve. “Look!” she whined at him.

He took the paper out of her hand, giving her a scolding look. “Where did you get this?!” he asked.

She pointed at Phoebe and said, “That woman with too much black stuff round her eyes gave it to me… but look daddy! Look! That man looks just like Uncle Nico!”

[Ludub]

Thanks again everyone for the lovely comments!  Much appreciated! Hope you enjoy this chapter!

 

Chapter 26

 

“Sit down and have a beer” said Kyle, nodding at Heath in an insistent sort of way and opening a bottle of beer for him. “You’ve done enough for me the last couple of weeks. The least I can do is shout you a few beers!”

Heath shook his head at him and gave him a dubious look. “I’m not sure you’re ready for this, mate. I can cover a few more days, no problem…” he said. Tamara had told him what Nate had said when they’d got back from the hospital yesterday. They were meant to be looking out for him and making sure that he didn’t get too distressed. The whole episode with the self-harming had them all pretty concerned about him and the hospital had only allowed him to come home if he was kept under close supervision. Coming back to work so soon seemed a bit premature, especially because it meant dealing with the general public, and putting himself in the line of fire as far as the paparazzi were concerned. Heath had decided to take an extended leave of absence from his work in the city to make sure that he could look after things for him here. It was important to him to make sure that Kyle was okay.

“Sit!” said Kyle, refusing to take no for an answer and pushing Heath out from behind the bar with a little smile. “You’re taking tonight off!” Heath reluctantly gave in and slid onto one of the stools on the outside of the bar. Kyle pushed the beer towards Heath across the counter and handed him a pizza menu. “Don’t worry!” he said, giving him a sarcastic little shake of the head, “You can keep an eye on me from there if you have to!”

Heath gave a little sigh and rubbed his face in both hands. He was exhausted. The last few weeks had really taken their toll on him and he’d been doing his best to hide that from everyone, but especially Kyle. He looked up at Kyle again with tired eyes, and said, “Thanks, mate! I could use a sit down.”

Kyle leaned on the bar, staring down at the counter top for a moment, and trying to summon the courage to say what he needed to say. He took a deep breath and blew it out again. Looking up at Heath as he sat there at the bar in front of him, he said, “I need to talk to you about something…” He could see that Heath was sitting up straighter now and looking at him with that worried expression that had become so familiar over the last while. This was going to be hard and he wasn’t sure how Heath was going to take it.

“Um… I… I need you to know that I really appreciate everything that you’ve done for me and Tamara the last few weeks…” he continued, leaning over to give Heath a pat on the shoulder.  “I don’t think either of us would have got through this without you… and I really mean that, Heath.  You and Bianca have been incredible!”

“It’s okay, mate…” said Heath, giving him a nervous little smile. “It’s what families do for each other, isn’t it?” he said.

Kyle smiled a sad little smile and said, “…I want you to know that I love you like a brother…” He rubbed his face in his hands and let out a big sigh. “But we’re not really brothers… I mean… we are and we’re not… What I’m trying to say is that I can’t be a Braxton anymore… and I think you know that.” he said shaking his head and looking a little teary-eyed. “Me and Tamara have had a talk and we’ve decided to change our name to Summers… I’m gonna be… um… Kyle Summers.”

Heath began to smile a little and said, “And you thought I’d be upset?”

Kyle nodded and gave a little shrug, staring down at the countertop again and finding it hard to meet Heath’s eyes. “I don’t want you to feel like I’m rejecting you or something…”

Heath smiled and reached across the bar to squeeze Kyle’s shoulder. “Mate… I think I get why you’re doing it. You didn’t just come home one day and say I don’t want your surname anymore!” He stood up on the stool and put Kyle in a headlock, jokingly giving him a noogie. “I don’t care what you want to call yourself, mate. You might not be a Braxton… but you’re always gonna be my annoying little brother! You got that?!”

Kyle laughed and tried to wriggle his way out, glancing at the few customers that had stopped eating and were staring at the two barmen mucking about and giggling like schoolkids. “Get off!” giggled Kyle, pulling away from him and smoothing his hair with his hand. “Look what you’ve done!” he scolded him mockingly, as he righted the bottles of cordial that Heath had made him knock over when he’d pulled him over the bar towards him. “You’re gonna scare the customers!” he said, with a big smile stretched from ear to ear.

Heath turned and looked around the restaurant. It was the afternoon lull, between the lunchtime rush and dinner, so there were only about ten customers and a couple of staff, but he was right, they were all staring. Heath laughed and gave Kyle a little wink.  He stood up on the footrest of his stool and pointed at Kyle theatrically, with a huge silly grin plastered across his face. “This is my little brother, and his name is Kyle Summers!” he shouted, before turning and razzling Kyle’s hair again. The customers all looked at each other, shrugging and looking noticeably confused, but soon returned to their plates of food. Heath turned back to him with a smile and sat back down. “I’m really proud of how you’re handling all this, mate” said Heath, quietly this time, and lifting his beer for a toast.

Kyle opened himself a beer and clinked the bottle off Heath’s, looking a little embarrassed, but feeling incredibly relieved. “Kyle Summers” he repeated, staring off into the distance with a little smile. “I think I’m okay with that.”

 

*****

Andy led Josh in the door of Angelo’s, looking around to see if he could spot Kyle, and headed for the bar. Matt was standing behind the bar polishing glasses, and Heath was sitting chatting with him and finishing off his last slice of pizza.

“Hey!” said Matt, seeing the two boys walking towards the bar. “You two here for dinner?” he called out to them with a big friendly smile. He didn’t see much of Josh these days, now that they were doing such different things, and he kind of missed him.

“No mate, have you seen Kyle?” asked Andy, looking between Heath and Matt with a serious expression. “Tamara said that he was working tonight?”

“Uh… yeah” said Heath, giving Andy a quizzical look. “He’s out in the kitchen… I can go get him.” He got up to go and look for him and then thought better of it. He turned to face Andy again, and said, “What’s this about? I don’t want anyone upsetting him… not today.”

Josh nodded, agreeing with Heath that Kyle didn’t need any unnecessary stress at the moment, and thinking that maybe it would be better to just let Heath sort it. “Can we talk to you for a minute then?” he asked, “It’s about Phoebe.”

“What about Phoebe?” said Kyle, suddenly appearing behind them. “What’s she done now?” he asked sounding a little depressed.

“Mate, I think…” said Andy, shrugging a little and glancing at Heath apologetically. He didn’t have a choice now, he was going to have to tell Kyle the truth, whether it upset him or not. “I think she was the one that tipped the journos off about the funeral.”

Kyle walked over and sat down on one of the stools. “How do you know?” he asked, with a voice that was distant and flat.

“Uh…” stammered Josh, feeling bad for him. He knew that Phoebe had been the one to steal the laptop and it was because of her that this whole thing had blown up in the press the way that it had. He also knew that she’d insisted it had been an accident and that she hadn’t intended for it to happen. For her to do this so deliberately just seemed like such a heavy blow. “Uh… Andy saw her with that journalist… and uh… he gave her an envelope full of cash.”

Kyle nodded, staring at the ground, and gave a heavy sigh. They all stared at him waiting for a reaction but after a while when nothing had happened, Heath walked over and put his hand on his shoulder. “Mate, you okay?” he asked.

Kyle looked up and blew out a big breath. He turned to face Andy and Josh and said, “Thanks for letting me know.” Getting back to his feet and lifting a couple of menus off the bar he said, “I think I owe you two a couple of pizzas. I really appreciate your support at the funeral yesterday. Heath and I both do.” He motioned with his head to Andy, for them to follow him over to one of the booth tables, and set the menus down. He shook his head at himself when he realised that two menus weren’t necessary. It was really just force of habit, but sometimes he forgot that Josh was blind.

Andy and Josh sat down, looking a little confused by this whole thing, but not really wanting to argue with him if this was how he was choosing to cope with it. Everyone was walking on eggshells with Kyle, and Heath had thrown Andy a look to say that he should cooperate.

“Beer?” asked Kyle, setting down cutlery for them.

“Uh yeah, mate, that’d be good… but you don’t have to do this… we were happy to help out.” said Andy, looking at him with concern.

“Yeah, I mean… we’re sort of family” said Josh, facing in his direction with a worried look on his face. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked. “What Phoebe did was horrible” he said, shaking his head in wonder at the betrayal of it all.

“I’m fine guys, don’t worry.” said Kyle, “I’ll send someone over to take your pizza orders in a moment” he said, before disappearing off towards the kitchen.

“Is he really okay?” asked Josh, as soon as he’d gone. “He doesn’t seem okay to me.”

Heath appeared at their table and squeezed in beside Andy. “Are you sure about this?” he asked, breathing heavily and clenching his jaw. “You’re sure it was the same guy?”

Andy nodded and said, “Yeah, that journo that was at the funeral… even wearing the same jacket.”

“I’m gonna kill her!” said Heath, getting to his feet and storming out.

Andy watched him go and then looked at Josh in a startled sort of way. “I’m going after him!” he said, as he got up and ran out the door.

 

*****

 

“What sort of monster are you?!” roared Heath.  He was wide-eyed and snarling and the veins were standing out in the side of his neck. He’d certainly whipped himself up into a frenzy on the way out to the caravan park and he’d been lucky not to crash the car on several occasions. “Why would you do this to Kyle?!” he shouted, as he walked towards her van.

She was sitting outside the van on a deckchair with a couple of young surfers. They had an ice box with a selection of beers chilling on ice and a little mini barbecue going. Phoebe looked up in shock as she saw and heard Heath approaching, and jumped out of the deckchair. “What do you want, Heath?!” she asked in a frightened sounding way.

“It was my little brother’s funeral, Pheebs!” he shouted in her face, towering over her and forcing her to take a couple of steps backwards. “My little, murdered brother!” he spat at her, with hurt and anger in his eyes. “What kind of person are you?!”

“I don’t… I don’t know what you’re talking about” she stammered, eyeing the two boys that she’d been sitting with, and putting her hands up as though she thought he was going to hit her. “Please don’t hit me, Heath!” she whined in a pitiful sort of way.

“I’m not gonna hit you!” he growled at her, punching the wall of the van beside her, “You’d probably love that! Then you could sell some story about being brutalised by a Braxton to the papers too!” He stepped back from her and glared with pure hatred. “How much did you get for it, Pheebs?! How much was my little brother worth?!” he asked, shaking his head at her in disgust. He looked around for her bag and saw it lying on the ground. He went for it and tore it open, reaching inside for the envelope of cash.

“Hey! Give that back!” she shouted, moving towards him and reaching for the envelope in his hand. “That’s mine! That’s all I have!”

He looked at the envelope and did a rough calculation based on the thickness of the wad of cash. “What? $500?!” he asked, with his face screwed up in a look of pure revulsion. “$500 to betray Kyle? Do you have any idea how hard yesterday was for him?! You’re disgusting, you know that?! ...I really hope it was worth it Pheebs!” With that, he ripped open the envelope, and threw the money up into the air. “I hope you choke on every cent!” he said to her as the notes fluttered down around him.

He watched as she scrambled frantically on the ground, trying to pick up all the notes as they started to blow away, and he thought how pathetic she seemed.

The two boys she’d been sitting with were stoners, and they’d just been sitting there with mouths hanging open, watching the drama unfold. Suddenly they were both on their knees gathering the money off the ground and giggling like schoolgirls.

He turned to leave, just as Andy’s car screeched to a halt in front of him. Andy jumped out, wide-eyed and worried looking, and said, “Don’t Heath, she’s not worth it!”

“I know that” said Heath, stalking towards him with a look of disdain on his face. “She’s just a money hungry little witch” he said, glancing back at her as she clutched the scattered notes to her chest. “…and I hope she burns in hell.”

 

*****

 

“Hey baby” said Tamara, wheeling the pram across the floor of Angelo’s with a big smile on her face. “Jenny and David are just parking the car.”

“Hey” he said, sounding a little flat. He gave her a light kiss on the cheek and took the pram off her, wheeling it over to one of the booth tables, and motioning for her to sit down. He’d been sitting with Josh when he’d seen her come in and he nodded towards Josh at one of the tables and said, “I’m just gonna help Josh get downstairs. I’ll be back in a minute.”

She watched him lead Josh out of the restaurant and wondered at the slumped and tired way that he was carrying himself. He’d been quite upbeat when he’d left the house a few hours ago, at least as upbeat as he could be at the moment, but something seemed to have changed drastically over the last couple of hours.

A few minutes later, he reappeared with Jenny and David in tow, and led them both over to the booth table. Jenny and David sat down on one side, and Tamara nursed Noah on the other. Kyle went to get one of the other waitresses to come and take their order, before slipping into the seat beside Tamara.

“We have something that we’d like to ask you.” said Tamara, giving her ‘in-laws’ a gentle smile and then looking at Kyle a little excitedly. “Why don’t you ask Jenny and David?” she said to Kyle, giving his hand a little squeeze and smiling at him encouragingly.

He gave her a nervous smile and nodded his head slowly. Turning to look at his foster parents he said, “I um… I…” He rubbed his face and blew out a big breath, suddenly feeling quite anxious about this conversation and not really sure why. He was pretty sure that they wouldn’t mind him taking their name, but that feeling of worthlessness sometimes overwhelmed him, and on some level the thought had crept in that they might be ashamed to have him as their son. Phoebe’s betrayal had dented his confidence again, and he had been left wondering how she could think so little of him as to do something like this. Maybe he was someone that people treated badly because he deserved it? He glanced at Tamara again, struggling to find the right words. She smiled, and nodded at him to continue.

He stared down at the table and said, “I… um.. we were talking… um.., Tamara and me… We were wondering if it would be okay if…” He looked up at them as they gazed at him with love and kindness in their eyes, patiently waiting for him to ask what he wanted to ask. “Would it be okay if we changed our last name to Summers?”

David turned to look at Jenny, unable to hide his shock, but a smile slowly crept across his face. They both turned back to look at Kyle, and shock soon turned to huge white smiles, stretched from ear to ear. “We would love that!” said Jenny, tearing up and leaning her head in against David’s shoulder.  “You have no idea how happy you’ve made us!” said David, taking off his glasses to wipe at the tears that were rolling down his cheeks. “Of course you can take our name!” he said, reaching across the table and putting his hand on top of Kyle and Tamara’s clasped hands. “Welcome to the family!” he exclaimed, hugging his other arm around his wife.

Kyle smiled and gave a big sigh, shuddering a little with the relief of it all. “I’m gonna keep Kyle” he said, giving them both a nervous little smile. “So I’m Kyle Summers from now on… Are you sure you’re okay with that?”

“Kyle Summers!” said Jenny, squealing a little excitedly, and then smiling lovingly at both Tamara and Noah. She wiped at the tears that were now streaming down her face. “I can’t believe how much has happened in just the last week… We’ve got our little boy back… and now we have a son, a daughter, and a gorgeous little grandson!” She turned to look at David with big teary eyes and smiled the biggest smile possible. “Just look at our little family, David! Look at them!”

Tamara held Noah out to let Jenny take him. “I guess… This is Noah Summers then” she said, smiling as Jenny took him gently in her arms.

Two very happy grandparents gazed down at the snuggly little baby in Jenny’s arms, and David gently stroked the hair on Noah’s head. “Noah Summers” said David, shaking his head and looking up at Kyle with fatherly pride. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy in my life.” he said, beaming at him.

 

*****

 

“So where did all this money come from?” asked Emerson, peering at Phoebe with suspicion. “All this money that Heath Braxton supposedly threw around the place? Where did it come from?”

“It’s my money” huffed Phoebe, “It doesn’t matter where it came from! Heath Braxton took it out of my bag and threw it around the place. I mean… Isn’t that theft?!”

“Well, not if he didn’t take it from you.” said Emerson, giving her a very unsympathetic look and folding his arms in a defensive way. “It doesn’t sound much like theft to me… maybe wilful damage of property but even that…”

“I lost half my money!” she whined. “It blew away and people just took it!”

“Sounds like you were a little careless then, Miss Nicholson!” he said, smirking at her. “Like people who leave their laptops lying around, maybe you should be more careful about where you leave your things and the company that you keep.”

“That’s not the same thing!” she growled at him, flushing red in the face. “And I owned up to that!”

“Eventually” said Emerson, raising a disapproving eyebrow at her. He didn’t like this girl and he wasn’t making too many bones about showing it. Stealing from your housemate was a pretty low thing to do but selling that story to the newspapers had been particularly cruel. They all knew what Kyle Braxton was going through and the sexual abuse of minors wasn’t something to be joked about. Making money off the back of it was a pretty revolting and underhanded thing to do, especially given the close relationship that she was supposed to have with the victim. She struck him as a particularly cold fish.

“Well, I want Heath Braxton charged!” she said, glaring at him angrily and stamping her foot. “Are you telling me that you’re just going to let him threaten me and steal my money?!”

“Again, Miss Nicholson. By your own account, it doesn’t appear that Heath Braxton stole any money.” He narrowed his eyes at her and said, “What I’m more interested in is where you acquired $400 in the first place… Managed to ‘misplace’ someone else’s property for them, have you?”

“What?! No!” snapped Phoebe, but the reddening of her face gave her guilt away. “It’s my money… I uh… I just took it out of my account!” she said, realising what a stupid lie that was the second that she’d said it. She wasn’t sure if there was anything illegal about selling information to the press but for a moment she’d thought that this was a better story. Immediately, she could see her mistake.

“Oh I see!” said Emerson in a sarcastic tone, and gave her a knowing smile. “So if I were to check your bank account, I’d see a withdrawal for $400, would I?”

“Uh… uh…” she stammered, unsure of what to say.

“No? …Didn’t think so!” said Emerson, shaking his head at her in disgust. “I think the judge dealing with your case might be interested to hear about this $400. If I were you, Miss Nicholson, I wouldn’t be leaving town anytime soon!”

“Why am I being treated like the criminal here?!” she whined at him. “I came to report a theft!”

“And as far as I can see, you’re the only thief here!” said Emerson. “I expect you to provide me with documentation as to where you acquired this $400 of yours within the next 24 hours…”

Phoebe nodded at him with a scared look on her face and turned to leave. What on earth was she going to do now, she wondered. She’d made such a mess of things and maybe now she wouldn’t even get to go to Melbourne. As she walked out through the door of the police station, she took out her phone to call her dad. If anyone could fix this for her, he could. She pressed call on the screen but the call went straight to voicemail. “Dad, it’s Phoebe! I’m in trouble… Can you…” she started to say but she was suddenly distracted by a group of worried looking people walking towards her out of the darkness. “…Call me back?” she managed to say before hanging up and staring at the group as they passed her by.

She had to do a double take as she watched them pass. Among them was a man that she could have sworn was Kyle Braxton. He looked a little different, with a pair of glasses and a style of clothing that Kyle would never wear, but unmistakably Kyle’s build, sallow complexion, and the same bone structure. He had a confidence and a way of walking that was different to Kyle too, and he walked straight past her without a second glance. She stood there with her mouth hanging open and watched in shock as she saw them disappear through the doorway.

She looked at her phone again, and scrolled to Kyle’s number, before pressing call. It rang and she waited…

[Ludub]

Thanks to everyone who took the time to comment! Much appreciated! 

WARNING: ADULT THEMES!

 

Chapter 27

 

Kyle picked up his buzzing phone for the sixth time in the last hour and gazed at the name ‘Phoebe’ as it flashed up on the screen. He felt like his whole body was weighed down with an enormous weight and it actually hurt to take in a breath. He was just so incredibly tired. Up until today, he had been angry with her, and he probably would have answered the phone and given her an earful. Tonight, he just didn’t have the energy, or even the desire, to tell her off. There was no point. She was a lost cause.  Josh’s revelation had simply made him sad. So very very sad! It felt like some grey veil had fallen down over the world and everything seemed just that little bit duller today. He looked at the name on the screen again and he wondered who this person was. Was this really the woman that he had once wanted to marry?! Was she really the person he’d wanted to start a family with?! Why had he not seen her for the cold and uncaring person that she obviously was?! For the first time in a long time, he allowed himself to think about his little unborn babies, and he realised with a sickening jolt to his stomach that part of him was actually a little relieved that they hadn’t made it into the world. Phoebe was clearly a terrible person and he would not have wanted his poor little children to be saddled with a mother like her. He felt awful for even thinking it. He was horrified at himself for even having the thought, but it was the truth. Phoebe would have put herself first at all times and God knows what kind of life they might have had! Especially a child with serious health problems. He figured that she would have done a runner at the first sign of trouble but that might not have been the worst thing. He knew that he would have cared for them, and loved them, no matter what, but the thought had crossed his mind that Phoebe might have just decided to cut him out for spite. Then their poor little baby might have been all alone in the world with no-one to really care for them. Just like he had been. They might have had a father who didn’t have access, and a mother who didn’t give a damn. The thought of them ending up in foster care, maybe with people like the Hames’, made him shudder.

‘Phoebe’ calling for the eighth time!? He gave a heavy sigh, and cancelled the call yet again, shoving the phone back in his pocket. He didn’t know what she wanted, and he didn’t care! He looked up from wiping the counter top and gave Heath the least convincing smile possible. He couldn’t hide his sadness. Even the chat with the Summers today hadn’t lifted his spirits.

“Everything okay?” asked Heath, looking at him with concern, and thinking what a stupid question that was under the circumstances. “You know I can take over if you want to go home?”

“I gave you the night off Heath! You weren’t supposed to spend it sitting here, staring at me!” Kyle shouted over the music, shaking his head at him disapprovingly. “I’m fine. Just go!”

Heath shook his head and held up his empty beer bottle, motioning towards the fridge for Kyle to get him another. “I promised Tam that I’d keep an eye on you!” he shouted, giving him a mischievous grin. “She may be small, but Tam can be pretty scary when she wants to be… I’m not breaking any promises!”

The phone rang again and he took it out of his pocket with an exasperated sigh. Heath gave him a quizzical look so he held it up so Heath could see the name flashing on the screen. He shook his head in disgust and grimaced a little.

“Just turn it off! said Heath, reaching for the phone and powering it off for him. He looked up at Kyle who was now staring off into the distance with big sad eyes, and said, “Mate! She’s not worth getting upset over!”

 

*****

Kyle crept quietly into the bed beside Tamara, pulling in close to her so they were spooning, and planting a gentle little kiss on the skin of her shoulder.  She stirred a little and smiled, reaching for his hand, and pulling his arm around her waist. She interlaced her fingers with his and turned her head slightly so he could kiss her. “I’m glad you’re home” she murmured, with a little smile, before turning her head back onto the pillow to go to sleep.

He breathed in the sweet mango smell of her body lotion and rested his head on the pillow, giving a gentle sigh, and thinking how lucky he was that this was the woman that he had married. Tamara was warm and caring, and the most kind and supportive person that he knew. She was an amazing mother to little Noah and he was incredibly proud to say that she was his wife. She had stood by him through this whole ordeal without even a wobble of doubt. She’d put up with his breakdowns, his endless crying, his tantrums, and even this latest episode of self-harm. This wasn’t what she’d signed up for when she’d married him, but she’d accepted everything without question. Even changing her name, and that of her baby! As he gazed at her messy bun of shiny dark hair, and the rise and fall of her ribcage as she breathed, he wondered how he had managed to find someone as wonderful as her. More to the point, why did she want to be with him?!

Lying there beside her now, cuddled in close to her and feeling the warmth of her body against his, he thought how cold and lonely so much of his life had been. He’d been robbed of physical comfort for all of his early years, lying on a cold damp floor, with no-one to hold him or tell him that things would be okay. Affection and comfort like this would have seemed so alien to him then. It had taken him a very long time to accept physical contact as something that didn’t have to be threatening, but that could sometimes be pleasant, or maybe even welcome. Letting anyone touch him had been a particularly difficult hurdle to jump. The Summers had struggled with it, because it had taken years for him to accept that they weren’t going to hurt him. For him, every touch had held a threat of sexual violence. He’d viewed every hug or pat on the knee with deep suspicion, and he’d flinched endlessly. He’d been terribly confused about things for a very long time. The first time that he’d summoned the courage to be intimate with a girl, he’d been almost seventeen, and it had been absolutely horrendous. He couldn’t exactly say that it was when he’d lost his virginity, because that had been stolen from him long ago, but it had been the first time that it had been consensual. The whole experience had awoken so many feelings of shame and disgust in him, and had actually made him feel physically sick. He’d slept with her and then never talked to her again. He’d felt dirty and disgusting, and started to see himself more and more as that unwashed little boy. It had triggered his worst episode of self-harm yet, and absolutely terrified the Summers. He had washed his whole body with bleach and a scrubbing brush, and given himself burns that had needed treated surgically. It had taken a lot of counselling and a lot of support to get him through it.  It was another two years before he slept with a girl again, and a year after that he had met Phoebe.

Phoebe had been the first girl that he had really opened himself up to. His first love. He’d trusted her enough to be intimate with her in a way that he hadn’t managed with anyone else before. She was the reason that he could lie here now with Tamara, holding her close, and feeling safe in her embrace. Phoebe had meant more to him than she’d ever know. It was what made her betrayal all the more bitter.

He leaned over and kissed the back of Tamara’s neck and whispered to her quietly “I love you so much”. He didn’t really mean for her to hear him. It was just something that he needed to say in this moment. His heart felt like it would burst if he didn’t say the words. He couldn’t have found a woman more different from the Phoebe he’d come to know now. Tamara would never have hurt him like this. He wondered how Phoebe would have dealt with all this turmoil had they been married, and shuddered to think what kind of media circus they’d currently be embroiled in. She’d have probably sold him to the highest bidder by now!

Tamara rolled over to face him with a sleepy little smile and leaned in to give him a kiss. “I love you too” she whispered to him, gently caressing the side of his face. “Now go to sleep!”

 

*****

 

“I’d forgotten how nice it is to live in a small town” said Bianca, giving Heath a big smile, as she sat at the patio table making sandwiches for lunch. She looked across at Harley who was playing in the sandpit and then back at Heath with a happy little sigh. “It’s so good to see Irene, and Leah, and all the other friendly faces around! …I’d forgotten how nice it is for people to know you… to not just be some anonymous face in the crowd.”

“You’re not getting ideas, are you?!” asked Heath, with a hopeful sound in his voice. “I mean, you’re not saying that you want to move back here, are you?” The longer Heath had been back here the more at home he’d been feeling, and he was dreading going back to the city. Life there wasn’t exactly what he’d hoped it would be. They still didn’t have a lot of friends.

“I don’t think we can really, can we?” said Bianca, giving him a non-committal shrug. “I mean with both our jobs… and Darcy’s school…”

“Yeah but, you’d like to?” said Heath, giving her a big smile and nodding at her encouragingly. “You’d like to move home to the Bay?!”

She raised an eyebrow at him a little mockingly, and said, “No prizes for guessing where your heart lies then, eh Heath?”

“I just think it’s a great place for any little kid to grow up…” he said, holding his arms out wide, as though the garden they were sitting in was proof enough. Apartment living just wasn’t the same.  “…and this whole thing with Kyle has made me realise just how important having your family around you is…” he said, giving a heavy sigh and shaking his head a little sadly, “I mean… I know that me and Kyle aren’t really related… I know that… I mean, I hate it… but I know that now.”

“I know, baby” she said, cocking her head to one side sympathetically and giving him a little half-smile. She knew how much all this stuff with Kyle had affected him, and she really wished that there was something, anything, that she could do to help.

“I just feel like I don’t really have any family left…” he said, tearing up a little and wiping at his face in a frustrated sort of way. He hated crying in front of people, even Bianca. “Casey’s gone… With Brax on the run, I’m never really gonna get to see him again… He might as well be dead… And now I find out that Kyle’s not even really my brother… It just feels like everything is falling apart.” He stared down at the table, folding and unfolding a paper napkin, and blinking in a desperate attempt to stop himself from crying. He took a deep breath in, wiping again at his teary eyes, and looked up at Bianca. “He’s changing his name, B… I have to pretend that I’m okay with that… But if I’m honest, I really want him to keep being my brother and I just feel like this whole thing is dragging him further and further away… I mean, of course I know why he’s doing it… but I’m just scared I’m gonna lose him completely!”

“You won’t!” said Bianca, getting up from the table to put her arms around him. “He loves you” she said, trying her best to reassure him. She pulled him into a tight hug, and felt him just let go, as he began to cry. She looked at him now and she was struck by how worn and tired he looked. The last few weeks had been incredibly hard. Kyle’s horror stories had certainly taken their toll on him and he’d been having to hold everything together, and be strong for Kyle’s sake. Bianca knew that Heath was a much more sensitive soul than he made out, and he often really took things to heart. Being a father now, he couldn’t stand the thought of anyone being cruel to a child, and Kyle’s story was more than he could really handle. Something had had to give eventually.

"Sorry!" said Heath, pulling away from the hug and wiping his eyes with the heels of both hands. He gave her a slightly embarrassed and guilty smile, and said, "I know it's not fair of me to pressure you like this... but I just think I’m gonna have to stick around here for a while… I don’t really have a choice. I mean, Kyle’s really gonna need some support for a while, especially when the trial comes up. I don’t know how he’s gonna cope with that when it happens... And he hasn’t even found out what happened yet… or who he is…”

He reached out and took her hand in his, looking up at her pleadingly, and said “I’d really like it if we could all stay… But I’ll understand if you and Darce really want to go back… I just think I might have to stay for a little while longer and maybe just come home at the weekends. We’ll work it out… somehow.” He’d started to tear up a little again. He really didn’t want them to go but he knew that he needed to see this through. It had obviously been weighing heavily on his mind the last little while.

Bianca looked down at her husband's tear-stained face, and then gazed around the garden, taking in a big breath of fresh sea air. She knew that Heath was right. Life was so much nicer here. Even the air ‘tasted’ good! "You know what, Heath?” she said, giving him a big smile, “Nowhere has ever really seemed like home like this place has… It is a great place for kids to grow up... And I like having Kyle and Tamara in our lives.” She gave a big sigh and sat down in his lap, stretched across him sideways, with her arm around his shoulder. "The city's too fast a pace, and I think we're both a bit lonely there... I miss Irene... and you clearly miss Kyle...” She took his face in her hands, leaning in to give him a kiss, and then gently wiped the tears from his eyes with her thumbs. “I don't think I can go back to the city either... " she said, taking his hand and placing it softly on her tummy. "Not now..." she said, giving him a meaningful look and biting her lower lip nervously.

Heath's eyes widened in shock, as he realised what she was trying to tell him, and a smile slowly crept across his face. "Really?!" he exclaimed, with a silly grin stretched from ear to ear. "Really?!" he asked again, his voice full of emotion and excitement. "We're gonna have a baby?!"

Bianca nodded, and her eyes filled up with happy tears. "I never thought I could do it again" she said, holding his hand on her stomach, and smiling through her tears. "I didn't think I'd ever want to again. Not after Rocco... but I found out a few days ago... and I...  I'm already nearly 3 months gone... and I've never been so excited, Heath!... I really want this baby!"

“Three months?!” exclaimed Heath, looking at her tummy and wondering how he hadn’t noticed the little bump that was so plainly evident now. “How?! …I mean, how did we.. how did you not know?!”

“I just thought I was over-stressed at work… not eating properly… I’ve been a bit irregular for a while…” she said, shaking her head in wonder. “I actually just thought I was getting fat!”

He laughed a little, still not really able to take it in, but the smile on his face said it all. He couldn’t have been more pleased. “We’re really gonna do this?” he asked, stroking the side of her face as he gazed into her tear-filled eyes. “We’re gonna be parents again?!”

She nodded and leaned in to kiss him again. “We’re having a baby” she whispered to him between kisses, “A little brother or sister for Darcy and Harley!”.

He hugged his arms around Bianca's waist, as she leaned in against him, and he put his chin on her shoulder. "I can't believe it!" he said, smiling contentedly. "You've just made me the happiest man on earth!"

 

*****

 

"I need to speak to Kyle" said Phoebe, brazenly walking in the open door of Kyle and Tamara's house. "He won't answer my calls but I really need to tell him something!"

Tamara looked up at her in surprise, as she walked in, and couldn't help jumping a little. She was breastfeeding Noah on the couch, and Heath had just popped next door to Josh's, leaving the door wide open. "Well, he's not here!" said Tamara, lying to her. Kyle was out in the garden with Darcy and Harley. "He's made it pretty clear that he doesn't want to see you or talk to you! Don't you think you should take the hint?!" she said, glaring at her angrily.

"This isn't about me!" said Phoebe, in a pleading tone. “It’s about…”

"Everything is always about you, Phoebe!" snapped Tamara, resisting the urge to shout for fear of frightening Noah. "You don't know how to put someone else first. It’s always you you you!"

"Look, Tam! Last night, I…" Phoebe started to say, but Tamara cut her off.

"Don't call me that!" growled Tamara, "We're not friends, Phoebe! You've hurt Kyle more than you can ever imagine... and I can't forgive you for that! Not ever! I want you to go… now!"

"Fine! Don't forgive me! I get it! I'm a monster, yada yada yada..." she said, throwing her hands up in the air in a theatrical way. "But I need to talk to Kyle... This is important! It's about his birth family!"

"No!" shouted Tamara, getting red in the face. "No, Phoebe, I need you to go now!” Noah started to wail, startled by the angry voices, and Tamara gave Phoebe a withering look. “I don't know what kind of scam it is this time, but I think you've gotten enough money out of my poor husband, don't you?! How low can you possibly get?!"

"Seriously?!" came a voice from behind Phoebe. Heath had just walked out of Josh's and spotted Phoebe standing in the living-room. "Seriously?!" he asked again, in an exasperated tone.

"Heath, this isn't about me... or you..." she said, giving him a pleading look. "I need to tell Kyle something! It's about..."

"Nope!" said Heath, interrupting her, and taking her by the elbow to drag her out of the house. "You don't get to do this, Pheebs!" he snarled at her. "You don’t get to do the things you’ve done and then just show up expecting to speak to Kyle. We don’t want to hear your excuses, or your snivelling…” He pushed her out the door and onto the porch, glaring at her and motioning with his head for her to leave. “Go!" he roared loudly.

"I'm trying to do the right thing" whined Phoebe, with a wounded expression on her face. "I'm trying to help!"

"You wouldn't know what the right thing was if it bit you on the bum!" shouted Heath over his shoulder as he walked away.

"But... I think I found his family" muttered Phoebe, as the door slammed in her face. No one was listening.

 

*****

Kyle sat on the couch with his arm around Tamara, playing with the fingers of her left hand, and pretending that he was watching the movie on the TV. Heath and Bianca had taken the kids out for dinner, grinning and giggling like maniacs, and saying that they wanted to give him and Tamara some time on their own. He didn’t know what was up with them, but he appreciated the time alone with Tamara, and the little bit of peace and quiet in the house. He was trying to watch the movie, but he couldn’t stop his mind from whirring, no matter how hard he tried. He just couldn’t concentrate on what was happening on the screen. Still, he was doing his best to laugh when Tamara laughed, trying to make her think that he was enjoying it with her, and to create some sense of normalcy for her.

He knew that Phoebe had called over to the house looking for him, and that she’d said something about his ‘birth family’. He couldn’t figure out what she would have wanted with him this time, and what kind of cruel trick she was planning to pull on him now. He just couldn’t get his head around it all. She’d meant everything to him at one time in his life, and for her to turn on him like this, was just soul destroying. Why would she do it?! He had nerves in his stomach, and his whole body felt jittery and on edge, as he wondered what was coming next. What more could she do to hurt him?

Tamara laughed at something on the screen and turned to look at Kyle when she felt him follow suit just a moment too late. “You’re not really enjoying this, are you?” asked Tamara, giving him a sympathetic look. “We can turn it off, if you like?”

“I’m enjoying it!” he lied, smiling at her and nodding his head in a very unconvincing way. “It’s funny” he said, doing his best to smile.

She picked up the remote control and pressed pause. “Babe, I know you’re not enjoying it. You don’t have to cover with me… not ever.” She put her hand up to caress his face and gently kissed him on the lips. “What’s going on in that head of yours?” she asked, looking at him with concern.

He let out a big sigh and shook his head. “I can’t talk about it tonight, Tam. I can’t… I’m too tired.” he said, shrugging a little. “Can we just watch the movie and sit here like a normal couple, for once?”

She lifted his hand and kissed it lightly, before turning back towards the TV, and pressing play again. She leaned her head in against his shoulder and held his hand that little bit tighter. She was sad that he was hurting so much and there was nothing she could do about it. Maybe just being here with him was helping in some way.

Suddenly there was a knock at the door, and Kyle jumped a mile high, thinking that it was Phoebe back again, or some of her journalist mates. He glanced at Tamara, looking noticeably startled, and clambered to his feet with his heart racing. “Who’s that?!” he asked her, staring at the front door but clearly not making a move towards it.

She shrugged and grimaced a little. “I don’t know… I’ll go and see.” She walked over to the door, glancing back at him with a worried expression, and wondering who would come to the door so late at night. It was nearly eleven, and very few people they knew would have called over this late, not now that they had the baby. She opened the door, and her eyes widened in surprise to see the man that was standing on the doorstep. “Detective Drazic?!” she exclaimed, spinning around to look at Kyle, and blanching a little white with shock.

Detective Drazic peered into the room, past Tamara, to make eye contact with Kyle. He gave him a slightly nervous smile, and said, “Kyle, we need to speak. I wanted to do this in person and I didn’t want to keep you waiting any longer than I had to… So I got the first flight down here that I could.” He walked into the living-room and motioned with his head to the armchair beside the couch. “May I?” he asked.

“Uh… yeah…” stammered Kyle, feeling his heart thudding in his chest and his stomach tying itself in knots. “What… what… what’s this about?” he asked, shakily taking the spot on the couch closest to the detective. “Please… just tell me!” Tamara joined him on the couch and put her hand on his knee, smiling at him, and trying to be supportive.

Drazic gave him a huge smile, with a flash of white teeth, and unzipped a leather folder that he’d brought with him. “Kyle…” he said, blowing out a big breath and running his hand through his hair, “You have no idea how happy I am to tell you this… I don’t often get to deliver good news in my line of work…” He reached over, putting his hand on Kyle’s shoulder, and said, “We’ve found your birth family!”

[Ludub]

Thanks to everyone for taking the time to comment!  Really appreciate it. Hope you like this chapter!

WARNING: ADULT THEMES!

 

Chapter 28

 

 

“Baby?” said Tamara, watching as Kyle stared down at the sheets of paper in his hand. He’d managed to open the envelope and unfold the letter but it was clear that he was struggling to take that final leap and begin reading. The letter was shaking so violently in his hands that she was sure he wouldn’t be able to read a single word. “Do you want me to read it to you?” she asked, eyeing it a little nervously. She desperately wanted to see what it said, for both his sake and hers.

Detective Drazic nodded to her encouragingly, giving her a sympathetic smile, and fidgeting a little nervously in his chair. This was the first time that he’d been able to give someone good news like this, but the whole story was just so tragic, that he wasn’t sure how Kyle was going to take it in the end. He was well versed in breaking bad news, the ‘your life will never be the same again’ news, and he knew all too well how to deal with the distress of bereaved family members. Sadly, he was more than comfortable with that, sometimes feeling like the grim reaper, but this was new for him. He wanted Kyle to be happy. He wanted to be able to give someone news that would make them happy just once in his life! He could see that Kyle was still in shock, and reeling from the revelation that his family was out there looking for him. He was clearly still trying to take it in and make sense of it. Drazic looked down at the leather folder in his hands, and thought better of handing over any of the other documents yet. The letter was going to be shock enough, for now. He thought that it might be best for Tamara to read it to him and then they’d see where they went from there.

Without replying to Tamara, Kyle handed the letter to her, wiping his hands on his jeans and looking down at the floor with a heavy sigh. She took the sheets of paper from him, noting the flowery handwriting and female style of penmanship, and took a deep breath to begin reading.

“Dearest Noah” she began, letting out a loud gasp, and covering her mouth with her hand. “We know that you call yourself Kyle now, but for nearly three whole years your name was Noah.”  Tamara squealed and reached for Kyle’s hand, as he looked up at her in shock. “Baby! Your name is Noah!” she said, smiling at him with tears in her eyes. “That’s why you liked that name so much… Baby, some part of you must have remembered!”

He shook his head in wonder and stared at the pages that were fluttering now in her other hand. “Noah?” he said quietly, in a dazed and distant sort of way. “I’m Noah?” he said, questioningly. He nodded at the pages in her hand for her to continue.

“We know that you call yourself Kyle now, but for nearly three whole years your name was Noah. You were son to Anna and Marco, brother to Nico and Mia, grandson to Vito, Clara, Antonio, and Maria, and cousin to so many that it's not possible to name them all here. Your name was Noah Innocenti.”

Tamara stopped and looked over at Kyle. He had a completely vacant look on his face, like none of this was really registering. He was simply staring at the letter in her hand. She reached out and gently touched his face, turning him to look at her. Their eyes met and he shook his head as tears began to roll down his cheeks. She took his face in her hands and gave him a gentle kiss. “Kyle… your name is Noah Innocenti… You’re Italian!” she said, tilting her head and giving him a gentle smile. “And you have siblings!”

He looked up at her with pain and sorrow in his eyes and said, “So I do have a family then?”

She nodded and looked back at the letter, smiling and tearing up a little, as she read the next few lines. “We want you to know that you were an incredibly loved and cherished little boy. We love you. We have never stopped loving you. Your absence left a gaping hole in our hearts that we have never been able to fill. We have missed you every single day that you have been gone.”

Kyle sat back against the cushions of the couch with a shuddering sigh and glanced at the detective who was sitting to the other side of him. He wiped at his eyes in an embarrassed sort of way and looked at the floor again, unable to maintain eye contact. Detective Drazic gave him a sympathetic smile and patted him on the shoulder. “They’re desperate to see you, Kyle. I wanted to break the news to you first. It would have been a bit too overwhelming for them to just show up here… We’re going to arrange a meeting with them… when you’re ready.”

Tamara smiled at Detective Drazic and then turned back to Kyle. “See, baby, they love you! They’ve always loved you!”

Kyle rubbed his face in both hands and took a deep breath, looking back at the letter that Tamara held in her lap. “Does it say in there what happened?” he asked. “I mean how I ended up at the Hames’?” He was finding it hard not to break down completely. He’d expected an ‘ah-ha’ moment where he’d hear their names and suddenly he would remember everything, but it hadn’t happened. How had he forgotten everyone? How could he not have remembered that he had a brother and a sister?! Why were none of their names familiar to him?! He had wanted to have some sense that he belonged with these people, but try as he might, he couldn’t remember anything. Was this another lie?! What if he threw himself into building a relationship with these people only to discover that it was some sort of scam and that it wasn’t true? He didn’t think that he could cope with more disappointment or betrayal. His heart hurt just thinking about it. Part of him wanted to curl up in a ball and cry himself to sleep. This was all a bit too much.

“You have two little sisters, Cassie and Ella, who arrived some years later, but they have always known about you - their beautiful big brother Noah! We told them about you all the time. You have never been forgotten, not even for a moment!” Tamara beamed at him, and said, “Baby, you have a brother and three sisters! How amazing is that?!”

He nodded and stared at the floor again.  Yeah, it’s amazing” he said in a very flat voice, hugging his arms around himself. He wasn’t sure what he was feeling. He was afraid to accept that any of this was true. He’d like to have thought that he had siblings, and a family that wanted him, but something just didn’t seem right. He had an anxious feeling gnawing at the pit of his stomach. Phoebe’s betrayal had made him paranoid and he just couldn’t shake the feeling that this all seemed too good to be true. “Go on” he said, nodding his head sadly, “Just read it… don’t stop till the end...”

“I am so sorry, Noah! What happened was my fault, and I don’t know if I can ever forgive myself, knowing what I know now. I am truly sorry, my beautiful little baby boy! We thought that you had died. We lost you one sunny day in November. You were nearly 3 years old. We spent the day on the beach building sandcastles and paddling with armbands in the shallow water. Your sister was at your grandmother’s house so it was just the four of us; me, your daddy, you, and Nico. We were having such a lovely day! Then daddy went to get us some food and you stayed with me and Nico on the beach. We were talking to another family who seemed nice. They were very friendly, and their son Tom, who was about eight years old, took a great interest in you both. You and Nico were both enjoying playing with an older boy and splashing about in the water. Nico wanted a drink so he came to me, looking for his tippy cup, but we didn’t see the bee on the handle. Nico is severely allergic to bee stings, so when he got stung, he immediately started to go into shock. I had to act quickly. We had an epi pen in the car so I picked him up and called to you to come with me. You were having so much fun with Tom that you didn’t want to come and I couldn’t make you come out of the water. Nico wasn’t breathing well and I didn’t know what to do. I made the wrong decision, and it will haunt me for the rest of my life, even more so now that I have some idea of what really happened! The couple we’d been speaking to said that they would keep an eye on you until I came back. You were wearing armbands and the water was pretty shallow, and I thought you would be okay playing with the other little boy. I decided to pick Nico up and run to the car with him. By the time I got back, the alarm had been raised and people were diving in and out of the water looking for you. A lifeguard arrived and went out searching the water for you. By the time your daddy arrived back the whole beach was thronged with rescue people and police. People on the beach said that a rip current had dragged you out. The couple, and their little boy Tom, said that you’d ventured too far out and suddenly been swept away. It was like you'd disappeared into thin air! We looked for you. We searched for you for many days but you were gone. We believed that you had drowned. The coastguard said that bodies were sometimes never recovered, that the currents had carried you too far out, and that they were going to have to call off the search. They looked for you for over a week but there just wasn't any trace of you. We stayed there for weeks hoping that we'd find you. We wanted to bring you home so we could at least bury you with family. We wanted to have a grave to visit, and to know where you were. But you never came back. Not knowing where you were, or what had happened to you, has been the hardest thing.”

“Eventually we had to go home and try to be a family again without you. We didn't know where to start. We struggled for a very long time, Nico especially. You boys are twins. Identical twins. You did everything together. You were born first and you'd always been the stronger one, the more confident one, the leader. Suddenly Nico was on his own. He didn't have you anymore. He didn't have that mirror image, that other half of him, his more confident other half. Mia blamed me for what happened, and she was right! As parents, we were a mess, and we couldn't stop fighting. There were days when one of us, or both of us, couldn't get out of bed. Your loss was just too heavy a blow. We couldn't get past it. It took a very long time for us to feel that we could move on. I’m not sure that we ever really have.”

“Yesterday, your sister’s husband found the newspaper with your photo on the front page. I knew you as soon as I saw you. You still have those kind and soulful eyes. You still look so much like Nico, but you were always a little different. I could always tell you apart when no-one else could. My son-in-law knew that there had to be some connection, so he brought the paper to show us, and much to our shock and horror, we began to join the dots. There was a photo of the Hames’ on the front of the paper as well. I recognised them immediately! They were the couple that we met that day on the beach! That couple with the young boy called Tom. They were the ones who raised the alarm and told everyone that you had drowned. They were the reason that the search and rescue operation was launched that day. I don’t know where you really were for all those hours that they stood side by side with us on that beach, but they had us searching for a body for days on end, when they’d really just snatched you. I hate to think what they’d done to you and where they were keeping you! That woman had the nerve to stand with me on the beach that day, putting her arm around me and consoling me, and telling me that it wasn’t my fault. I feel sick when I think how cold and calculated their actions were. They took our child from us. They stole you from us and then they cried crocodile tears by our side. That woman Jessica even sent me a condolence card when we held a memorial service for you. It’s a wonder that she didn’t come in person to see first-hand the pain and suffering that she’d caused!”

Tamara glanced at Kyle who was now covering his face with both hands and leaning forward on the couch with his elbows on his knees. “Kyle?” she said, cautiously reaching out and touching his arm. “Kyle, are you okay, baby? Do you want me to stop?”

He took his hands away and shook his head. The expression on his face was one of such pain and anguish that she thought her heart would break just looking at him.

Kyle tried to give Tamara a little smile but it came out as more of a grimace. He felt like someone had reached inside his chest and was slowly crushing his heart in their fist. Things were starting to fall into place for him and beginning to make a lot more sense. He didn’t remember the Hames’ taking him from the beach that day, but he did have a memory of being tied up and gagged, and lying for hours in the dark and the sweltering heat. He knew who Tom was too. He was starting to understand a little better some of the arguments that had happened in that house. They had used Tom as bait, luring children to play with him, and convincing parents that they could be trusted. That was how they had abducted the children. Tom had been complicit for many years, and he had had a privileged position in the house because of it, getting to sleep upstairs and eat when he wanted to. He had often taken part in some of the punishments of other children, seeming to take pleasure in their suffering, and trying to impress Jessica and Simon with his cruelty. At fourteen, he must have outlived his usefulness, or maybe he had grown tired of it and wanted to stop. Whatever the case, Kyle remembered the loud fight when Tom had screamed at them, threatening to tell the police what they’d been doing all these years. They’d all heard him try to leave but there had been loud crashes and screaming above ground. The children in the basement had listened in fear as Tom had been dragged screaming and crying along the floor, and then thrown down the stairs with a loud crashing thud. That was when they’d done it. That was when they’d lined them all up and made them watch, saying that this is what happened to blabbermouths. He didn’t think that they’d meant for Tom to die, but he’d panicked so much with the blood and the pain that he’d choked himself, and it was something that Kyle would never be able to forget.

He looked at Tamara and nodded again at the letter in her hand.  “Finish it” he said to Tamara, slumping back into the sofa and puffing out a big breath.

She smiled at him, thinking how sad he looked, and took another big breath to continue. “So here we are, tesoro, I am so sorry that I left you that day. I’m sorry that I trusted those people to watch you, but I thought that they were normal parents, on a day out at the beach just like the rest of us. I’m sorry that I was so stupid and didn’t see them for the monsters that they obviously were. I know that you have lived through a nightmare that very few people can imagine, and my heart is breaking to know how much you have suffered. I would give anything to go back and change things… but I can’t.”

“All we can do now is try to move forward… as best we can. If we can. I hope that you are willing to come and meet us. I hope that you will want to know your family, to see your brother and sister again, to meet your little sisters and your other relatives, and to let us hold you tight and never let you go again. Noah Innocenti, or Kyle if you’d prefer that we call you that, we love you! Please come home!  Mamma xxx”

Kyle gave a shuddering sigh and reached his hand out to Tamara to take the letter back. She let him take it from her, and tried to give him a little smile, but he looked away and sat there shaking with the letter in front of him. She watched him as he mouthed the word ‘mamma’ over and over again and furrowed his brow. She didn’t know what to say to him. Suddenly they had the answers to their questions, but it was so much more shocking than she’d ever imagined. There was so much to process. So much to get their heads around. She didn’t really know where to start. She put her hand on his knee, giving it a little squeeze, and then glanced at the detective in the hope that he might have some idea of what to do next.

Kyle looked at the letter and ran his eyes over the words, taking in the odd sentence, and running things over in his mind. He repeated the name ‘Nico’ to himself under his breath, trying to remember ever saying that name before. Nothing was coming back. He couldn’t remember him! He finally looked at Tamara, shaking his head in wonder and sadness, and said, “I have a twin… How did I not remember that I was a twin?!” He turned to the detective and glanced at the black folder on his knee. “Do you have photos?” he asked, eyeing the stack of documents inside.

Drazic nodded and opened the folder again. He pulled out a stack of A4 pages and set them on top of the folder. “Okay, Kyle, I have some photos that your family gave me to show you… and I have some newspaper cuttings from the time of your abduction. We thought you might want to see some of them, just to understand a little better what happened.” He took a deep breath and handed him the documents, glancing at Tamara a little nervously.

The first page was a photo of a man and woman who looked to be about fifty years old but who were wearing well for their age. He looked at the shapes of their eyes, and their noses, and their mouths, and thought how strange it was that for the first time in his life he could see his own features in the face of someone else. He looked like both of them in different ways. Kyle could see that he had his mother’s eye shape and colour, and he’d definitely gotten his skin tone from her. His father looked like an older version of him, with a slightly heavier, more muscular build, and a squarer jaw. He looked back and forth between the faces and then looked up into Tamara’s eyes. “These are my parents” he said, as his chin began to tremble and his eyes filled with tears again. “Look Tam, I have my dad’s nose!”

Tamara leaned in and put her head on his shoulder to look at the photos with him. She thought how most people take it for granted to look into the faces of their parents and see their own features staring back at them. Kyle had never had that sense of belonging.

He looked at the next page and let out a gasp, covering his mouth with his hand, and glancing at Tamara in shock. There was a photo of his four siblings sitting together on a sofa, dressed in warm winter clothes, and surrounded by Christmas decorations. Right in the middle was his twin brother! It was the weirdest sensation to see his own face staring at him, looking at the camera with a happy grin stretched from ear to ear, and hugging his arms around the girls on either side. He had that smug and over privileged look that Kyle had always hated. He looked like someone who had never known pain or suffering in his life. Looking at it sent a shiver down his spine. Here was the life that he could have had. Here was the shiny, perfect, picture postcard life that he should have had. This was the life that was stolen from him. He looked at the face of this man, that looked so much like him, and all he felt was a surge of anger. He wanted to wipe that smug self-satisfied smile off his face. He wanted him to experience for just one moment the misery that he had lived through. To feel the pain and the humiliation of the childhood that he had lived. He looked at his brother’s face, and wondered why he had been the one that was chosen, and not Nico. Why had the Hames’ taken him? He looked at his brother and he thought how their paths had diverged that one day on that beach. Nico had got a bee-sting, and he had lost his family forever. He knew which one he would have preferred!  

The more he looked at this happy family scene, with the four of them cuddled up so cosy together, the more he realised that he would never fit in. How could he ever sit there with them, smiling like that, when all he’d be able to think about was how much he’d missed out on? How could they ever treat him as one of them, when all they’d be able to see was a victim of child pornography? It just wouldn’t work! What would they have to talk about?!

Kyle sighed and sat back against the sofa, rubbing his face again in exhaustion, and wiping at his eyes. “This is just…” he started to say, but he didn’t really know how to finish the sentence. “This is…” he tried again, before shaking his head in exasperation. “I… just can’t….” he said.

“Maybe we should look at the rest of this stuff in the morning?” said Tamara, rubbing her hand up and down his arm in an attempt to be reassuring. “I think it’s all a bit much to take in right now… maybe when you’ve had some sleep?…”

“You think I’m going to sleep?!… Now!?” he sneered at her, giving a bitter laugh and shaking his head incredulously. “Look at these people! Tam, look at them!” he snapped, holding the photos up for her to see. “Look at their smug faces! This is my life! This! This is the life I was supposed to have!”

He stared again at the happy group photo of his four siblings, and then turned, glaring angrily at Tamara. “I mean, look at them! They couldn’t be happier, the four of them together! Look at them in their winter sweaters, probably skiing in Europe for Christmas! …I mean, what am I supposed to talk about with these people?! Look at this photo, Tam! I don’t fit here… I just don’t fit!” He jabbed his finger in the photo of Nico’s face and held it right in front of Tamara. “He fits! ...I just… don’t!” He sat back again leaning his elbow on the arm of the couch and hiding his eyes with his hand. “I don’t know what I thought I wanted…” he said, with a tired sigh. “I just don’t know.”

Tamara took the rest of the papers out of his lap and sifted through them slowly. There were a number of news articles outlining the tragedy of the small boy who drowned on a day out at the beach. Most of them focused on the fact that he was one of a pair of twin boys, and the anguish of his parents losing him while tending to the other’s allergic reaction to a bee sting. There was even an interview with the Hames’ where they made out that Simon was some sort of hero who’d gone above and beyond in an attempt to save the poor boy. She glanced at Kyle wondering whether to hide it from him. This just seemed like too heavy a blow.

Her eyes suddenly fell on the date that was printed on the news cuttings. “3rd November 1996?” she asked, giving the detective a look of surprise. “But… 1996?!” she said, “But… That would mean that Kyle is…”

Detective Drazic nodded and blew out a big breath sitting forward in the chair with his hands in a steeple shape. Kyle had taken his hand away from his face and was looking at him with confusion. “Kyle” he said, “I’m not sure how to tell you this…” He cleared his throat and ran one of his hands through his hair, “It seems that you were born on 1^st December 1993, Kyle… So, you’re actually only…”

“24?!” exclaimed Kyle, his eyes wide with shock. “I’m 24?!” His face blanched white and he turned to look at Tamara, “I’m only… 24?!”

Tamara furrowed her brow and looked back at the detective. “This can’t be right! Kyle’s 27… I mean… Isn’t he?!” She looked back and forth between the two of them, with a sinking sensation in her stomach, as she realised that Kyle really didn’t know anything about himself for sure. He didn’t know who he was. He didn’t know when he was born! Kyle Braxton would have been 27 years old, but Noah Innocenti was only 24! Her mind was racing as she did mental calculation after mental calculation, trying to figure out what age he would have been at different junctures in their life together. She looked back at him now, trying to see if he looked younger to her now, and wondering if it should have been obvious to her. He stared into the distance in a dazed way, as though he’d disappeared into a world of his own.

Kyle thought about the number of times that people had told him that he was small for his age. When he’d arrived at the Summers’ house they’d had to buy him clothes for a ten-year-old. It was something that he’d found deeply embarrassing because he’d been led to believe that he was fourteen. He would only have been eleven at that time! When he visited Danny Braxton for the first time, he would only have been fourteen. No wonder Danny had thought he was so small and scrawny for a seventeen-year-old! So much of this suddenly made so much more sense…

“It’s what made the search that bit more difficult” said Drazic. “We hadn’t considered that you might not be the age that we thought you were. I’m sorry about that. This has been a bit of a learning experience for our team, actually.”

Kyle smirked and gave a sarcastic huff. “Glad I could help!” he said, a little bitterly. He looked at his own reflection in the window behind Drazic and gave a heavy sigh. “Y’know… I don’t know a single thing about myself! Every time I think I’ve got a handle on things, someone like you comes and tells me that I’m wrong… Do you have any idea what that’s like?!”

Tamara took his hand in hers, and reached with her other hand to turn his face back towards her. She looked into his big sad eyes, and said, “Kyle… You’re still the man I love… I didn’t know that you were 24 or that your name was Noah… but I know who you are…” She put her hand on his chest just over his heart, and said, “We both know who you are… in here.”

"Oh man, that was cheesy!" he said, smirking a little and laughing sadly. He gave her a sarcastic wink and said “You’re just pleased that you’ve got yourself a toy boy, eh?!”

Detective Drazic cleared his throat, sitting forward, and putting his hand on Kyle’s knee. “Um… Kyle?” he said a little nervously. “Your family would like to meet you…”

[Ludub]

Thanks everyone for the support and kind comments. Much appreciated as always. Hope you like this chapter! 

WARNING: ADULT THEMES

 

Chapter 29

 

 

“Okay, Kyle, they’re ready for you.” said Detective Drazic, giving Kyle a little smile and then looking around at all the other anxious faces in the room with him. “Whenever you’re ready, mate… there’s no rush” he said, before leaving them to it.

Kyle pulled himself forward on the couch, covering his face with both hands, and blew out a big shuddering breath as slowly as he could. His stomach was doing somersaults, and he felt like his heart was beating so fast it could easily burst. He knew that he needed to try to calm himself down or this wasn’t going to go well at all. He took his hands away from his face again and glanced around at Heath and Bianca, and then David and Jenny, giving them all a little nod and a nervous smile. “So, I guess, this is it.” he said, getting shakily to his feet and holding out his hand for Tamara to come too. As he and Tamara walked towards the door, he could feel his heart thumping in his chest and he was already shaking so badly that his legs felt like they were made of jelly. Tamara gave his hand a squeeze and looked up at him with as reassuring a smile as she could manage. “It’ll be okay, babe!” she said, standing on her tiptoes to give him a quick peck on the cheek as they paused outside the door. “They’re gonna love you, sweetheart. How could they not?!”

He turned to look back at the faces of his acquired ‘family’, all watching with baited breath, and then looked back down at his clothes for the umpteenth time today. “You’re sure I look okay?” he asked, looking decidedly worried. “I mean… I have a different shirt upstairs… I could get changed again?” He’d already changed back and forth three times and thrown a bit of a tantrum that he hadn’t brought something else with him or bought something new! He’d never felt more self-conscious about his appearance in his life, and that was saying something. How do you choose what to wear to meet your birth family for the first time? He didn’t want to look like he’d tried too hard or like he was going to a job interview, but he didn’t want them to think he was a slob either. He didn’t want to make a bad impression. They all looked so posh and wealthy in the photos that they’d sent, and he worried that they’d probably think that he was some sort of small town bogan. Part of him wanted to go in there with his head held high, and say ‘this is me, take it or leave it!’ but the other part of him had spent a lifetime hanging his head in shame, and feeling small and worthless. It was hard to change a habit of a lifetime. He’d often overcompensated, trying to play the part of some tough guy with a volatile temper, but with everything that had happened recently, that whole façade had been torn away and all that was left now was a scared little boy. He just didn’t have it in him to pretend anymore. “Maybe I should put the navy one back on?” he asked, fiddling with the rolled up sleeves of the white one he was wearing.

Jenny got up and walked over to him. She put her arms around him and pulled him in tight for a hug. “You look fine, Kyle! …It’s a lovely shirt…” she said, rocking him gently from side to side. She pulled back from him, taking his face in her hands and looking at him with tears in her eyes, and said “…and you’re a very handsome man! Any mother would be proud to call you her son…  Now go in there, and meet your family!”

She turned and walked back to David, clearly doing her best to hold her tears at bay but not doing a very good job. David threw Kyle a wink and put his arm around Jenny when she sat back down.

“I think it’s time mate…” said Heath, giving Kyle a little smile and nodding at the door behind him. “We’re all out here if you need us… We’re not going anywhere!” he said, looking nervous on Kyle’s behalf.

Kyle nodded and gave a heavy sigh, smoothing down his shirt again, and wiping his hands on the legs of his trousers. He felt so nervous he thought he could throw up. He reached for Tamara’s hand again, and gave her an incredibly anxious smile, before turning the door handle and opening the door.

He walked in, hand in hand with Tamara, on legs that were shaking so much he wasn’t sure how they were even still carrying him, and his heart was beating so hard in his chest that he could hear it in his ears. There they were, right in front of him! There were the parents that he hadn’t seen since he was two years old! He smiled nervously at Tamara, and let go of her hand to walk towards them, and they started to move towards him. He felt a wave of emotion crash over him as he looked at the faces of his parents. He could see his own features staring back at him. These were undeniably the people that had brought him into this world.  He’d never felt this kind of connection with anyone before. This was the ‘ah-ha’ moment that he’d been hoping for the other day! He knew in an instant that this was where he belonged!

His mother met him first, hesitating for a moment with tears in her eyes, before throwing her arms around him. He collapsed into her embrace, burying his face in her neck and holding her tight like he thought she might get swept away if he let go again. He was hit with the scent of lavender and was shocked when he saw the elephant earrings that she was wearing. Everything was suddenly falling into place. He’d obviously remembered some things! His father put his arms around both of them and gently stroked the hair on the back of Kyle’s head, smiling through his tears. His mother pulled back and started kissing him frantically on the cheek, cradling his face in her hands, and saying “Ti voglio bene” over and over between kisses. He hadn’t heard those words since he’d been a tiny child but he knew that they meant “I love you”. He wondered how he could have forgotten so much and yet he still remembered that! The tears were flooding down his face now and he was finding it hard to stay on his feet because he was shaking so much. “Ti voglio bene, Noah!” she said to him again, leaning her forehead against his and holding both his hands in hers. “I love you so much” she said, giving a big sigh.

His father, somehow sensing that Kyle was becoming a little overwhelmed, reached and took his son’s hand and led him over to sit on the one of the couches. It was a small conference room at the Sands Hotel, but the staff had set up two sofas in a living-room style with a coffee table in the middle. They sat down on either side of him with each of them holding one of his hands. He glanced at Tamara who was standing with her arms wrapped around herself, crying and smiling from ear to ear. She gave him a little wink and nodded for him to talk to his parents and not to worry about her.

“You have no idea how much we’ve missed you!” said his father, sobbing and wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand. “We thought you’d drowned!”

Kyle nodded and looked at his father’s hand that was holding his so tightly. It was a big hand and there were traces of flour around the fingernails. As he looked at it, he felt that he knew this hand, like a distant foggy memory of something long forgotten. The smell of flour and yeast floated through his mind, and he thought for one moment that he could actually remember placing his tiny hand in a hand just like this one and being swung high up into the air. A word floated into his mind and he turned to look at his father’s tear-filled eyes. “Babbo?” he said, questioningly, and not entirely sure what the word meant. He just knew that when he looked at this man, that was the word that came into his head. “What does Babbo mean?” he asked.

“Babbo!” said his father, pointing at himself and beaming at him with tears in his eyes. “Babbo means daddy!” he said. His father reached out and pulled him towards him so his head was resting on his father’s chest, and two big muscular arms were holding him tight. Ordinarily, letting a strange man hold him like this would have felt very strange, and set his heart racing with unpleasant childhood memories of unwanted physical contact, but in this moment he had never felt more at peace. He let his father hug him, and he held his mother’s hand on his knee, while she gently stroked his hair with her other hand. Feeling safe now in their arms, a wave of sadness overcame him and he closed his eyes and let himself cry. He cried for the little boy that he’d been all those years ago, and the life that he had had stolen from him. He cried for the days, and nights, and weeks, and years, that he had missed with his family. He cried for the parents that had loved him and wanted to hold him like this all his life. He cried for all the times that he had rocked himself to sleep at night in that dungeon that he had called home. He cried for all the pain that he had experienced in his life. His whole body shuddered and shook as he let everything go.

Tamara came over and sat on the other sofa, facing them, and smiled at Kyle’s mum. His mother reached out her hand to Tamara and beckoned with her head for her to join them. Tamara nodded and came to sit on the coffee table in front of Kyle because there wasn’t really room on the couch.

“So you’re his wife?” asked Anna, taking Tamara’s hand in hers and giving her a warm smile. “I’m Anna” she said, “and Noah’s dad there is Marco.”

“Tamara” she said, nodding and squeezing Anna’s hand, before giving Marco a little smile.

Kyle slowly sat up, rubbing at his eyes in an embarrassed sort of way and blushing a little. “Sorry” he said, wiping away his tears with the heel of his hand. “I should have introduced you” he said, reaching out for Tamara’s free hand. “This is my wife” he said, looking back and forth between both parents, and smiling proudly.

“That’s okay!” said Tamara, tilting her head at him sympathetically and giving him a little smile. “Why don’t we show them some photos of their grandson?” she said, taking out her phone.

 

*****

Kyle gave a heavy sigh and leaned his head against Tamara’s shoulder as they waited. He felt washed out and shaky with exhaustion. They’d talked for nearly an hour about so many things. He hadn’t gone into any detail about what had happened to him in that house but they seemed to know a lot of it anyway thanks to those awful news stories! In some ways he was actually glad that he didn’t have to tell them himself. Maybe he should thank Phoebe, he thought to himself.  They never would have found him if it wasn’t for the photo that was taken at the funeral and splashed across the newspapers! His parents had gone out to meet the Summers because they wanted to thank them for looking after Kyle so well when he came to them, and for helping him to recover after the terrible trauma he had been through. They also wanted to meet Heath and Bianca, because they knew how big a part of Kyle’s life Heath and the other Braxtons had been. After that, they were going to go and get Nico and send him in to meet Kyle. He had asked that today would just be his parents and Nico. He knew that Mia and his other two sisters might be upset about that, but anything more just felt like it would be too much to deal with today. He was finding this whole thing both emotionally and physically exhausting.

“They’re so lovely!” said Tamara, turning to face him with a big smile on her face. “And I didn’t know you could speak Italian!”

“Let’s not exaggerate…” he said, giving her a sad little smirk, “but neither did I!”

“Do you realise that Noah now has six grandparents?!” she said, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek. “What a lucky little boy!”

He nodded and gave her a small half-smile. He couldn’t help feeling sad that he’d never had that sense of family himself and a little appalled at the thought that he was actually a little envious of his own tiny baby. “So many aunts and uncles too” he said, staring into the distance as he thought about the ‘aunts and uncles’ that he had had as a child. Those titles had held a very different connotation for him when he was little and it certainly didn’t mean anything good. He was glad that Noah would have lots of extended family, and lots and lots of people to look out for him and make sure that he was safe. He just felt sad for himself that he hadn’t been so lucky.

Kyle jumped when he heard the knock at the door, and clambered to his feet, staring at Tamara with a look of fear on his face. He was dreading seeing Nico. His reaction to the photo the other evening had been one of resentment and he wasn’t sure that he could really put that feeling aside. Nico was too big a reminder of what he had lost. It was almost as though they’d been involved in some kind of twin case study to explore the effect that long term sexual abuse, deprivation, and isolation would have on a child, and Nico had been the control group with a thoroughly normal upbringing. It was just so hard to have to meet the one that got to develop normally, and who didn’t end up irreparably scarred and damaged on the inside.

He glanced at Tamara, and then stammered, shouting at the door, “Come… come in!”

The door opened and a man who looked exactly like him walked into the room. Kyle took a step back, unable to hide his shock, and reached for Tamara’s hand. She gave it a squeeze, and pulled in close beside him, stroking her hand up and down his arm comfortingly. “Do you want me to stay?” she whispered to him.

He shook his head and gave her a little kiss on the cheek before watching her leave. She gave Nico a little smile as she walked past him, thinking how weird this whole thing was. They did look almost identical but she wouldn’t have had any trouble telling them apart, even if their hairstyles hadn’t been different. Their eyes told such different stories! She mouthed the words “I love you” to Kyle before she closed the door.

Kyle sat down on the couch and nodded to Nico to come join him. Nico looked him up and down, and then walked over, sitting down on the couch beside him. They stared at each other in silence and every so often Nico opened his mouth to speak but the words just never came.  Kyle gave a heavy sigh and ran his hand through his hair, thinking how different the two of them actually looked. The more he looked at this man, who was undeniably identical to him from a genetic point of view, the more he could see the physical differences. Apart from their hair, Nico had eyes that held a very different expression, a small scar on his chin, and his teeth were much brighter and shinier. It wouldn’t take much to tell them apart.

Nico sat back and covered his face with his hands giving a loud sigh. “You know” he said, not looking at Kyle, “I’ve hated you all my life!”

Kyle gave him a surprised look and said, “You’ve hated me?!”

“Mmm hmm” said Nico, nodding his head and chewing on his bottom lip in an angry way. He looked down and stared at the basket of fruit on the table and said, “You died and you just left me here! I hated you because I thought it was my fault …I mean… I knew it was my fault… I’ve felt guilty for what happened to you all my life! Mum and dad never stopped telling the story to anyone who would listen… and it always started with me getting a bee sting! …Nico got a bee sting and then poor little Noah drowned!”  He turned, narrowing his eyes at Kyle and clenching his jaw, “Do you know what it’s like to live with that?! To know that your brother died because of you?!”

Kyle stared at him with an incredulous expression on his face and shook his head. “Oh yeah, poor you…” he said, giving a derisive laugh.

“Now you just turn up again and…” he started to say but Kyle cut him off.

“Yeah, now I just turn up again! After 21 years!” he said, glaring at him in anger. “Do you have any idea how different our lives have been?! Where I lived for seven years?! Don’t you know what I’ve been through? Haven’t you read those newspapers?!”

Nico nodded and turned to look at Kyle with tears in his eyes. “Yes, I know!” he said, beginning to cry. “I know all about it! …And now it’s even worse!” he sobbed, “It’s all my fault, Noah! It’s all my fault!” He hugged his arms around himself just the same way that Kyle always had, and looked away from him blinking furiously to stifle the tears.

Kyle’s face softened, as he realised that Nico wasn’t made of stone, and suddenly grasping the fact that Nico had been carrying this terrible guilt around with him for all these years. He knew that Nico had never had any control over events and that it wasn’t right for him to blame himself. He couldn’t help the fact that he’d been stung by a bee or that he happened to be allergic. That day could have been tragic in another way if his mother had chosen differently. Had she spent a bit longer arguing with him and trying to get him to come with her, then maybe Nico would have died from anaphylactic shock. Maybe he would be carrying around the guilt of having caused Nico’s death, rather than the other way round?

He put his hand on Nico’s knee and said, “I didn’t die, and none of this is your fault!” He gave him a sad little smile and said, “The only people to blame are the Hames’…”

Nico looked up at him with big teary eyes and hesitantly leaned over to put his arms around him. Kyle pulled him into a hug and gently stroked the back of his head. He thought how weird this was. Hugging his own mirror image! He didn’t think that he’d ever get used to this!

“No-no” said Nico, sounding a little muffled as he continued to cry and sniffle. “I’ve missed you so much! I’m so sorry! I’m so so sorry, No-no!”

Kyle pulled back and looked at him in shock. “No-no!?” he said, sounding shocked and surprised. “I… I…” he stammered as glimpses of half-memories flooded through his mind. “Ni-ni” he said under his breath, not sure what he was saying. He looked at Nico and said it again, “You’re Ni-ni, aren’t you?”

Nico nodded and wiped at his eyes with the sleeve of his top. “No-no and Ni-ni, inseparable from birth… until we weren’t.”

 

*****

 

Kyle held baby Noah in his arms, smirking a little at the old fashioned christening gown that Anna had insisted on them using, and glancing around at the happy smiling faces all around him. Tamara looked up at him and gave him a massive smile before planting a light kiss on the top of Noah’s little head. A lot had happened over the last couple of weeks, and maybe it was all moving a little too fast, but he figured that he’d missed out on enough family life over the years and he wasn’t going to waste another moment.

It had been a fairly informal gathering, that was more of a naming ceremony than a christening, because he and Tamara weren’t religious. Anna had been a little put out by that, because she was a devout Catholic and would have preferred that they’d had a proper christening in a church with a priest. She’d gotten over it though! Heath and Bianca had been delighted to be chosen as godparents. They’d asked Nico and Mia as well, even though they’d only known them a few weeks, but it seemed like a nice gesture and a way to better develop the ties between them. Kyle looked around and wondered at how much his life had changed in only a few short weeks. He’d gone from being relatively alone in the world to having one of the biggest extended families that anyone could wish for. Heath and Bianca were there, Josh and Evie were there, the Summers were there, and every Innocenti under the sun was there! Even Tamara’s parents had agreed to come despite their sometimes difficult relationship.

He looked around the garden, smiling at the crowds gathered round to celebrate with them, and thought how much better things seemed to him now. Nothing was ever going to change the traumatic events of his early life, but the future suddenly looked a lot brighter to him.

He sat down beside his grandmother, Nonna Clara, who was head over heels in love with baby Noah, and shouted, “Do you want to hold him for a moment?” She was very hard of hearing so he’d learnt to speak loudly and clearly.

She leaned across, giving him a mischievous smile, and pinched him on the cheek. “Ma quanto sei bello?!” she purred at him.

Mia was walking past and overheard the conversation, so she leaned down giggling a little, and whispered in Kyle’s ear, “I’d be careful there, little bro! Nonna Clara’s getting a little bit frisky these days and she says that you’re very good looking!”

His eyes widened at his sister, glancing at the grinning old lady beside him who was fluttering her eyelashes at him, and he started to laugh. Getting up quickly, he made his way over to Jenny and Anna, and smiled to himself at how well the two ladies were getting on. It would have been horrible if they hadn’t liked each other! As it was, both sets of parents were getting on like a house on fire and had actually been socialising together quite a bit. The Innocenti’s lived in the city, where his parents ran a restaurant, so it wasn’t too big a trek for them to come visit. Marco had been surprised to find out that Kyle ran a pizza restaurant and insisted that some part of him must have remembered his Italian origins. He tried to jog his memory about learning how to throw pizza dough in the family restaurant when he was little. Kyle didn’t remember, but his dad had promised to teach him again some day soon. His dad had clearly been very impressed with Angelo’s and had made it clear that he was incredibly proud of him. Kyle thought he’d change the name of the restaurant when things calmed down a bit, and that had made his dad very happy. The Summers on the other hand were in the process of buying a house in Summer Bay, and had taken early retirement to spend as much time with their grandson as possible. David was planning on doing a bit of freelance photography now, and Jenny had been writing more and more, and thought that she could maybe get something published. They didn’t need to be in Melbourne for that.

He held Noah up to his two mums, with a smile, and asked, “Who wants to hold Noah Summers-Innocenti for a moment?” They smiled up at him and Jenny held her arms out to her little grandson. He handed him over to Jenny and looked around the garden trying to see where Heath had got to. Spotting him on the far side of the garden with Nico and Ash, he really wasn’t sure that he would ever get used to seeing that mirror image of himself standing there like that. Nico still made him jump a little.

He walked over and clapped his hand on Heath’s shoulder, and smiled at Ash. “You can tell the difference between us, can’t you?” he asked them, throwing a wink at Nico.

“I think the haircuts give it away just a little bit…” said Heath, smirking at him sarcastically.  “Plus he looks more Italian… You’ve got a bit more bogan going on, haven’t you?!”

Kyle hit him in the shoulder in a playful way and shook his head in mock disapproval. “Look who’s talking!” he said, laughing a little. “Do you even own a shirt with sleeves?!”

He glanced across the garden, and smiled from ear to ear, when he saw Cassie and Ella sitting with Darcy at the patio table. They were all on their phones but they were obviously showing each other videos and stuff, and every so often there were loud squeals of laughter. It was really weird to suddenly have all these siblings! Cassie was sixteen and Ella was fifteen, so they were great company for Darcy, and they’d all been getting on incredibly well. Mia’s little girl, Ally, was only seven, so she didn’t really fit in with the other girls, but she was the sort who liked to hang around the older people so she was regaling the grandparents with funny stories and leaping about the place being silly. Alf Stewart and Irene certainly seemed to be enjoying her antics. He’d only known his sisters and his little niece for a few weeks but he already felt an overwhelming love for them all, and a strong sense of brotherly protectiveness. He couldn’t get over how much his life has changed since this whole thing had blown up in his face, and how many more people he had to worry about now!

He went to the cooler to grab a beer, and Tamara appeared behind him, putting her arms around his neck, and giving him a peck on the cheek. “It’s been a really good day, hasn’t it?” she said, giggling a little.

He spun around, setting the beer bottle back down, and gave her a big smile. “You know what, Tam? It’s been the best day I’ve had for a while.” He put his arms around her waist and leaned down to give her a kiss. “I love you Mrs Summers-Innocenti” he said, laughing a little. “It’s a mouthful, isn’t it?!”

“That is true, Kyle Summers-Innocenti!” she said, emphasising each word of his name. “But each part means something…” she said. She turned around to look at the happy garden scene, and pulled his arms around her, leaning back into him. “Love you too” she said, smiling contentedly.

He looked around the garden, and he thought about that fateful day out on the beach, and what the Hames’ had done. It still hurt more than he could put into words. Looking at the happy faces all around the garden, he wondered how many of these types of family events he had missed out on in his childhood. How many birthday parties, how many christenings, how many weddings? While Nico had been celebrating their joint birthday with cake and party poppers and enjoying party games with his friends, he shuddered to think what he had been doing and what kind of ‘party games’ he’d been ‘playing’.  It still made him immensely sad and that sadness was probably never going to go away. But now he needed to move on! Now he had his family back, and he had more people in his life that cared about him than he could ever have imagined. He did have things to be thankful for! He had his beautiful, caring, and loving wife in his arms, a gorgeous little baby, and now he even had a family and a sense of where he came from. He needed to make the most of things and try to be happy as best he could. He knew that the trial would be coming up sooner or later, and that that would stir everything up for him again, making him confront the terrible things that had happened to him. But now he would have his family by his side, bolstering him up, and holding his hand. The Hames’ had destroyed his childhood, and badly affected so much of his adult life so far, but he wasn’t going to let them destroy the rest of his life! Enough was enough!

He gave a little sigh, taking Tamara by the hand and lifting a few beers from the cooler, and they headed back across the garden to the throngs of happy guests.

 

THE END.

 

Thanks so much to everyone for reading! I've really enjoyed writing this but I think I might have to try writing something that isn't quite so horrible for my next fanfiction. I'll try to find a topic that doesn't involve murder, torture, child abuse, kidnapping, psychological breakdown, or serial killers! So I guess it'll be about.... Um... I'll have to get back to you on that... lol!  

 

 

 

Comments