My Only Regret Ch 04

Hello everyone,

I have listened to your advice and got an editor. I was scared because the last one didn't work out so well but hopefully this one will make the difference the story and you all deserve. I realized I wasn't paying attention to the story as much as I needed to. So now I'm going to buckle down and make 'My only Regret' a truly worthy piece of work. Thank you for ALL your comments. They helped me out and woke me up. I may even re-write the first two chapters and put them together with the rest of the chapters when I'm all done. I have a lot, and I mean a lot, planned for Dillon and it's going to be ride, bear with me.

Special thanks to Carmine, who is as sexy as a silk teddy and may be trying to seduce me. ; ) The burritos where amazing. La llave a mi corazon es alimento.

Also, thank you to the handful of people who always comment publicly or through e-mail. You guys make me smile and reaffirm my belief that I don't serve slop.

~Leigh AKA BrokenGlass

***

I heard laughing and feet shuffling behind the door, some one was coming. Now would be an excellent time to jump into the bushes and hide if there had been any bushes nearby. I did a double check just in case, there weren't, I gulped. The knob turned and I took in a hurtful breath.

"Dillon?"

"Mrs. Holt. Hi." I said weakly. Her red lip-sticked mouth hung open. She looked even better then I had remembered, she had always been a beautiful though. Leggy and blonde like Katie, usually pregnant, but still managing to be wispy and elegant. Her skin made you think of cream, I don't know why, like it would be sweet and soft to the touch maybe. She was not a small woman, but not a tall one either, her hair was always brushed out down her back in soft honey waves, she didn't believe in tying it back or holding it up. She had an excellent hairline that way and it made her look years younger. She looked mid thirties though she had to be almost fifty. Genes are and incredible thing and Mr. Holt was a lucky man.

She seemed at a loss. A small wrinkle, her only one by God, formed between her eyebrows, she was wondering what to do, what to say.

"Its been a long time." I started.

"Yes. Yes it has." She said breathily in her slight Southern accent. "Uh...I..." a male voice interrupted her from another part of the house.

"Ma? Who is it?" It said.

A grin broke out on my face and I couldn't help it. That voice. It hadn't changed, well it had gotten deeper but that little bit of a whine was still there. Oh gosh, I left when he was almost 14, he must be around 23 now. Dear God he was legal. What a crime.

"Is that Peter?" I asked. Peter was Joel's little brother. Joel was the second oldest, on top of Peter he had two younger sisters, one being Katie, and an older brother. Mrs. Holt, Maggie I believe was her first name, smiled at me.

"Pete!" she called. "Come see who it is." she finally had warmed up and grabbed me by the shoulders. That was Magdalene Holt. She could be as cold as ice until you mentioned her kids then she was all smiles and pride. A tall man appeared behind her as if by magic it was my turn to drop my jaw. Peter Bartholomew Holt was one spindly, gangly looking pre-teen. He grew up with nicknames like 'Tree branch, tooth pick, long neck' and ' ape arms' I mean, it was relentless. The 'Pete' that stood before me now weighed at least two hundred pounds and was topping 6 feet easy.

"My God." I said.

"My God too." He replied with a grin pushing past his mother, gently, to envelop me, roughly, in his arms. And I do mean envelop. He 'enveloped' me right off the stoop into the foyer.

"You been takin' steroids Tree Branch?" I laughed, partly at my terrible grammar; my inner country bumpkin was resurfacing. He laughed too, so hard in fact he had to lean against the doorjamb to keep himself upright. I heard wood groan. I guess it would be funny calling a mammoth man like that a twig. His amusement traveled up into his crinkled brown eyes, the same that used to belong to an almost gaunt looking face. His smile was ...radiant. Those braces had really paid off. He looked as handsome as his daddy, with that sandy brown hair and long nose. The nose, that I swear belonged to every blood Holt in the world, finally fit his face.

"Dillon! I can't believe you're here. Come in, have breakfast with us."

"Peter!" his mother scolded. We both kind of flinched like we were in trouble. Old Habits I guess, it may have been the tension though. I felt that; as sure as I was standing there. My appearance was random and forcibly awkward, I was setting everyone on edge. Whatever. "Take her coat." She said sternly. We both nearly laughed. Peter gave me a sly smile and took my coat into the next room. "I'll fix you a plate dear. You still take syrup on your scrapple, yes?" I did and nodded.

Mrs. Holt was originally from Texas, not too far from where my father grew up, and she, like me, had been raised on steak, cornbread and things on a pig that would make even the meatiest meat eater a little green. I came over for Sunday breakfast every year since I was eight and while everybody else dinned on waffles and English muffins we dined on scrapple and grits over in the corner.

"I stopped makin' extra ever since you...well...but I have some more in the fridge." I smiled and followed her swinging mane of hair into the sun filled country kitchen.

"You've remodeled." I said taking in the shiny new countertops laden with food and sturdy, straight new cabinets. Outside came sounds of dish clanging and pleasant conversation. I thought I heard Joel's laugh but I pushed it away. Nevertheless, I was hoping to God no one came in for more eggs. My stomach had this sick feeling to it, like I'd throw up at any minute.

"'Bout time innit?" she said sashaying to her industrial like range.

"I liked the lopsided look." I remarked. It was kind of an out-of-body experience talking to her, being in this house. Like I wasn't really here, but was watching. Like a dream everything was going too good. It wouldn't last though, I'd bet on it. She laughed quietly as she dug around for another plate.

Peter reentered. He draped one heavy arm over my shoulders and pulled me into his side, I tried to relax into him but found it difficult. I guess I couldn't get over him being so big and ...attractive. I never really thought of Pete but when I did I thought self-conscious loner. I was looking at confidence personified now. I wondered when that had happened; growth spurt in High school maybe? I bet he played varsity football and made all the little cheerleaders swoon. I decided I would ask later.

"What are you doin' here anyway Dill?" he asked casually reaching for a strip of bacon on a paper towel covered plate.

"I well...my fiancée is doing some work over in Trent and-" Mrs. Holt dropped her spatula. I felt Peter tense beside me and stop chewing.

"What-." He started, choking on a bit of bacon. I patted his back uselessly loosing the fight with my frown. This could be bad. Mrs. Holt, ladylike in all things, resumed cooking the meat in her pan with a very polite,

"Well Congratulations." Really, it was very sincere. Peter coughed into his fist a few times and nodded purple faced.

"Right, Right. Hey Congratulations." He finally managed to get out.

"Yeah." I said wistfully.

"Pete." Mrs. Holt said not turning.

"Yeah ma?" he replied stepping away from me. Suddenly, I had the plague.

"Could you take this plate of pancakes out to the table?" she asked pointing behind her to a steaming pile of 'cakes.

"Sure." He said taking them.

"And Pete." He turned over his shoulder carefully not making eye contact with me. "Why don't you have a few before you leave." She finished.

"Right." He said stuffing two into his mouth and heading through the screen door that lead to the back patio. She waited for it to shut with a clang before swirling around to me,

"Why didn't you call, write, anything?" she asked bluntly. The sick feeling in my stomach traveled up my throat in a line of burning acid.

"I sent a few letters to Joel." I confessed hating myself for it. I didn't want to talk to her about this.

"Nine years ago, Dillon Marie." My face must have shown something, I was betting shock because she replied with, "Yeah, he told me about them. He tells me everything." She ended very pointedly. "He didn't say you were engaged. I should have known, it would explain how very upset he was." She resumed cooking but I knew it wasn't over.

"I can't believe he told you." I said. "I don't know why he's even upset, it's been ten years." That was a lie. " I have every right to have found someone else." Even to me it sounded defensive. I didn't want to be defensive. I shouldn't have to be. But I did, I wanted to grovel, beg for her forgiveness, but I'm above all that right? My mind flashed to waking up next to Joel, feeling sorry, weak and afraid. Pathetic. I was becoming pathetic.

She froze. "I was hoping you had changed, Dillon. I really was."

"I have." I said leaning against the counter hoping I looked cool and calm. She swung around,

"Really?"

"Yeah." I answered.

"If you had, you would see the error in that particular statement." She sounded pissed, her accent was so thick she slurred.

"What's that?"

"You told him you were coming back, Dillon. He believed you, waited for you. Not for ten years, but for a long time. When you stopped writing he went looking for you." I swallowed, oh god what had he seen? I'd dated extensively in college and after. I even lived with a man named Andrew for almost a year.

My face heated up on its own accord, partly from anger. I couldn't believe he spied on me! She cocked her to the head to the side, "Worried? Don't be. He didn't tell us anything personal. He just told us you were in college, doing well, studying hard that kind of thing. But the look on his face, the way he carried himself after. We knew you weren't coming back." She paused. "We didn't mention you again." She returned to cooking, anger seeping from her, it was palpable.

"If you want me to leave, I'll go." I said. I really wanted to but-

"Now that's the funny thing, Dill. As much as I hate what you've done to my boy, I can't let you leave. Not again. Not like before."

"Then what do you want me to do? Apologize? Fine. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt Joel." There was a slight tremble to my voice I hoped she didn't notice.

"Oh I know you didn't. You didn't mean for a lot of things to happen. But they did. I know you're sorry too. Sorry that you have to listen to me. I don't think you care."

"I do!" I nearly screeched. Where had that come from? I swallowed. "I do. I care. I ...I loved Joel. He was my life." Why had I said that? She didn't answer right away. She started plating my food. When she spoke It was so soft I barely heard her.

"Do you think leaving is gonna save you, Dillon?"

"What?" I asked, noticing for the first time I had a death grip on the counter behind me.

"Do you think," she said "running is gonna make all this go away?"

"I-."

"You did then." She interrupted. Something snapped in my chest. Rage flowed through me in scalding waves.

"And it did!" I said forcing myself away from the counter. "It did." I was breathing shallowly on the verge of panic. I hated this; she was psychoanalyzing me. I had enough self-examination this morning. I wanted to scream just to hear anything but the flow of blood in my ears and the thud of my heart in my chest.

"But you know its not going to work anymore. He's seen you, found you." Her voice got louder as her eyes bore into me. I turned away not knowing what to say not wanting to yell at her.

"That wasn't the plan." I finally managed to say.

"No. You left because you were too big for Creek, too ambitious."

"I know!" I all but yelled.

"We've always known that. But you didn't come back because you wanted to forget." I shook my head, but what she said echoed in me it was something I already knew. Something I would have to live with. "This is your home, you may not belong here, but it is what it is. You understand that?"

"I know what I did, I know why, Mrs. Holt. I know, okay? I was terrible. I came here to fix that. To change that, to move on." She laughed at me. Really laughed; threw her head back and let loose. I clenched my jaw and waited for her to stop.

"You moved on Dillon," She said "But he found you and because you're not completely heartless you felt bad about it. It bugged you. I'm sure your big city boyfriend was miffed too. You're here so you can ease that nagging. And I wont give that to you. I won't forgive you like that." She snapped her fingers. " Not until you really prove to me you care. And not just about Joel and the rest of us, but yourself. " She slid a plate over to me, "Start by going out there and facing up to what you did. If that's to difficult for you leave and don't ever come back."

***

You would have thought I'd kicked a puppy. Dead stares. Open mouths. Completely and totally aghast, all of them! Except for a little boy and a dark haired woman sitting across from Joel. The woman was looking at everybody with a mix of amusement and hurt like she'd just made a joke and no one was paying attention but she couldn't help thinking it was still funny. Then she saw me, and all that turned into cautious curiosity.

There were eleven people at that table. The table held them all because, like the family, it had grown out of control. It was a thin, pure white, rectangle with twenty mismatched seats, and one that I remembered carving my initials into it with a steak knife at Christmas dinner when I was fourteen. I recognized all but on person there. (The dark haired woman) My eyes roamed and took in Papa Holt ;I sighed with relief. I felt a lot better now, like I could take on what was about to happen. Almost.

I stood by a stack of leftover chairs; painfully still I waited as they scrutinized me. I wondered if I would be the first to say something when Caroline, Joel's sister in law, wife of his older brother Ben, said,

"Dillon? What are you doing here, girly?" she stood up and walked the seven chair-length to come up next to me and put her arm about my shoulders. I started to pull away but restrained myself.

"Hey Caroline." I said meekly. "Is that jr. over there?" I asked pointing with my full plate at the boy sitting on Joel's right.

"Sure is." She beamed. I had left four days after Benjamin Holt Jr. was born. That made him nine. The boy looked lost and Joel looked like he was going to have a breakdown. His face was horror-struck. Like he'd just seen someone brutally murdered with a pickaxe.

"Well ya'll are darn rude." Caroline said with a flick of her short ginger curls. "Say hello why don't cha'?"

"Hello Dillon." Said Benjamin, monotone. He said everything in monotone. In fact, he WAS monotone. Average height, average build, average brown hair and those Holt brown eyes, not ugly but not overly attractive. Nothing remarkable. I had always wondered how he'd won a wife as fiery and outspoken as Caroline. Maybe he was more impressive in bed.

"Dillon." Greeted Jeremy. Joel's dad also went by Mr. Holt or Jerry. Surprisingly when I heard the name Holt I didn't think of Joel, I thought of Jerry, a hard working family man, who loved his wife, Country and day-to-day life. He was the older version of Ben. Face wrinkled from the sun, hands rough and scarred from work, with all the mild family features.

"Dill! Lookin' good." That came from Eddie Foley. A childhood friend of Joel and me, he lived in the neighborhood and was another part of the Holts 'extended family.' We'd known each other since preschool.

"Hey Eddie." I said with a smile. He smiled back, dimples prominent. He was the epitome of 'blonde- blue-eyed -corn-feed-country-boy', him and Joel. People would have confused them for brothers if everyone here in Wood Creek hadn't known each other since birth. Eddie was bigger though, taller and more muscular, plus he had those dimples.

Shawn Kelly, another neighborhood kid and old friend, nodded at me. He was Joel's best friend. He was dark Irish. Dark brown hair and deep green eyes made a sharp angled face and freckle spotted nose highly attractive. Shawn was never a talker so I didn't take it too personally. I probably should have though by the way he stared.

Harsh arguing brought my attention from Shawn to the end of the table where Papa Holt was sitting next to Jerry and Beth, Joel's sister, only three years younger then Joel and I. She was the middle child and with that said she had a considerable chip on her shoulder. Usually she aimed all that pent up hostility at me. That's why, though she is closer in age to me then Katie, I got along with Katie better. Beth was a bitch, plain and simple. Every family had one. Beth was the Holts. We'd gotten in more fights, physical and otherwise since she was old enough to defend herself, mainly because after that I hadn't held back.

"No!" she proclaimed loudly, she said looked over at me. "Who does she think she is?" Papa Holt touched her forearm and Beth hissed at me in her permanent holier then thou tone, "Welcome back Dillon, I see you've helped yourself to us poor folks food. Eating and running again?"

"Beth Anne." Caroline said shocked.

"Don't YOU dare patronize ME, Caroline!" she snapped back. I felt like I'd missed something vital in that statement. It sounded like a cheap shot though.

"Beth." Said Ben Sr., his voice actually held heat. I was impressed.

"No, I deserve that." I said nodding.

"You deserve way more then that you stupid bitch!" My head snapped up at her words, face heating and fist clenching. Ben told his son to go inside and help 'Gramma' and before he could even open his mouth in Beth's direction, Jerry had already chewed her out for cussing in font of Jr. My temper hadn't subsided though.

"Well, well, Pickle," said a booming voice from the end of the table. It belonged to a gray haired old man with a very mischievous sparkle in his eyes. "You cause quite the stir, don't cha?" My anger vanished with a whoosh of air.

"Yes'r," I said fondly. "Its good to see you, Big Papa."

"You too Pickle." He said. Beth burst from her chair. It flung hard against the concrete floor of the covered porch. She was on her feet and coming at me before I could even absorb the sound of broken wood. The man that sat next to her, I recognized at Dave Kiser, her boyfriend in middle school, jumped up with a,

"NO, Beth!"

I had time to think. No what? Before her fist came flying, it caught me in the cheek with a thud, knocking me backwards. The plate flew from my hands and shattered on the hard ground right before my back hit. Concrete bit into my elbows and forearms then came up and smacked me in the back of the head with a sickening thud. That hurt more then the punch had. I lay motionless for a second, dazed, hearing chairs screech and people shout. Eddie came into view; he lifted Beth off her feet before she could kick me in the ribs and held her tight in his capable hands. Caroline was trying to keep a very interested Jr. in the house but couldn't quite manage because she couldn't take her eyes off the train wreck that was me.

"If your gonna hit her back, now would be the time Dill." Eddie declared, jokingly I think, you could never be sure with him though. Beth's round face looked panicky, her bone straight brown hair falling wildly around her face.

"No I'm not going to hit her back." I said touching the sore spot developing on the ball of my cheek. I wanted to but-

"Ya sure?" He said, "She can't hit you back. I got 'er arms. See?" he showed me, and Beth screamed and fought back. Hard. Kicking and lunging and shouting as loud as she could. Eddie held on, squeezing her, but Beth wasn't having it, she threw her head back and knocked him in the face.