He finally spoke when he got out and stood against the guard rail, looking down at his shoes, which now had black laces.
"I've destroyed all evidence of that video," he stated.
My eyes widened a little. "The video from the party?"
He nodded, still not looking at me. "There are no copies of it and I deleted the original. No one but you and I will ever know about that video, so you don't have to worry about it anymore."
There was no other word for it, I was simply stunned. And even in the midst of all the shock I was feeling, I realized I didn't feel one single ounce of the relief I expected to feel. I didn't feel free, I felt discarded.
"You're sick of me," I finally said, feeling strangely disappointed.
He looked at me, but there was no twinkle in his blue eyes. "No, I'm definitely not," he said, a humorless smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"Then why?" I asked, feeling a strange tightening in my stomach. "I don't understand. I didn't ask you to do that, Derek. This is coming from nowhere. Is it because of yesterday? You're mad at me, so you don't want to be with me anymore?"
"Nikki, it's nothing like that," he said, shaking his head.
"Then what is it? I'm confused."
He waited for such a long time that I actually thought he wasn't going to answer me, but he finally said, "I talked to my dad last night. About... the letters, about your mom... about my mom."
My eyes widened again, but I didn't think it was my turn to speak, so I just let him continue.
"I know what happened now. He explained everything, beginning to end. He told me he and my mother had broken up and he started hanging out with your mom... he explained how it all started, and about when my mom found out she was pregnant with me, the way she told him she had the best Christmas present in the world to give him."
He paused briefly. "He told me that, although he tried not to let her see, he was completely miserable after that, and how even then your mom would try to cheer him up. He told me about the conversations your mom would have with him, how he was torn... but at the end of the day, he had to do what he thought was right. He told me that your mom cried to him a couple times, one time she even asked him why it was 'the right thing to do' to break her heart. He told me that... he could never give her an answer. He said he knew it wasn't right, but he didn't think it would be right to abandon us either, so he had to hurt someone, and I guess she just... I'm the only reason that he chose to hurt her. Then he told me that he had kept stringing her along, he even admitted that to me. He said he was trying to find some way out of it, some magical answer to all his problems. But he never found one, so he finally just started pushing her away, thinking that would make it easier for her to let go. He told me that my mother pretty much used me to make sure she didn't lose him. She knew about Jamie, but she didn't care, because she knew she had the Trump card. She had me, and as long as she did, my dad wouldn't leave her, because she made sure he understood that if he left her, he left both of us."
I could remember journal entries where my mother had pretty much said the same thing, but I still didn't feel like it was my turn to speak, so I just kept listening.
"And it was your mother that they were fighting about that night," he told me. "My dad lied to protect Jamie, because he knew my mom might actually go after her if she knew. But your mom was the woman that he cheated with."
"Why?" I asked quietly.
Derek shook his head. "I don't know. He said that he saw her, and she saw him, and even after all those years, her expression was still pained, he could still see the hurt in her eyes when she looked at him. He had turned her away to protect her, to stop hurting her, an
d in one moment of weakness it was all for nothing. He didn't tell me exactly what happened or how it happened, he just told me that... he did end up cheating on my mom that night."
I had figured as much. "Well, what about the rest of it? In that letter, Mom said stuff about him leaving Sarah, about them actually getting to be together. What was that?"
Derek sighed a little. "I guess being with Jamie again... after years of being unhappy, he said it just felt so right. He told her... he asked her if she still wanted to be with him, and she didn't answer at first, she just told him he was married. That was when he told her that he wanted to leave my mother, but he didn't want to lose me. He said she was so happy that night, and it was so nice to see her so happy when he hadn't seen it for so long, and she just kept getting promises out of him.
“By the end of that night, they were both actually excited about the idea. He said that even before they parted that night, she took his hand and asked him not to lie to her anymore, to only make her promises if he was really going to keep them. She told him that it was too hard to get over him the first time, that she couldn't stand if he broke her heart all over again. He told her... that he never wanted to hurt her again, and that he was sure it was what he wanted. He said that even when she left, she looked at him as if she might never see him again, so he didn't think she was convinced."
A few seconds passed and he didn't say anything else, so I asked, "What happened?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "He let her down again. When he told my mom that he wanted a divorce, she freaked out. She started threatening him again, promising him that if he went off with 'that whore' he would never lay eyes on me again. My dad didn't want to go into all the details, but I guess they fought about it for about a month, maybe a little longer. Your mom could tell, he said. He knew she wasn't fooled, and he knew she no longer believed in him. The day he told her he was sorry, he couldn't do it, he said that she looked like she was going to cry, but she didn't, she just smiled and said, 'I wish you loved me.' For the first time, he told her he did. He told her that he wished things were different, but things just hadn't changed. He told her that my mom still held me over his head, that if he left her, she still wouldn't let him see me. He said his only hope would be to wait until I was old enough to choose, but by then she might turn me against him anyway. He said he was sorry that he had screwed both of their lives up, and he wished he had it all to do over again. He finally told her not to hold on, not to wait for him, because I would probably be 18 before he would be free of my mother."
I didn't realize that tears had formed in my eyes as he told the story, but I felt one slowly slide down my face. "That's why she did it," I said quietly.
Derek nodded. "That's what he thinks, too."
Suddenly the last piece had fallen into place, there was no more mystery surrounding my mother's death.
She had loved Mike deeply, just as I had suspected, but he had made mistakes that ruined both of their lives. He had made bad choices, and they just hurt her more. Sarah had been using Derek to keep Mike her prisoner, and when Sarah stole Mike from her again, she just broke. I could actually imagine it playing out in my mind, see my mom driving down the road, thinking of Mike, probably wiping away stray tears that she didn't need to hold in since I wasn't with her. She probably saw Sarah pull out, and the anger and bitterness overwhelmed her. Looking at the car, she could probably only think of how the woman behind the wheel had ruined not only my mother's life, but the life of the man she claimed to love. She didn't know what love was, my mother probably thought. Sarah could never understand what it felt like to love someone more than she loved herself, because if she did, she would have let Mike go. She would have wanted him to be happy. But instead she used her child to keep Mike trapped in a relationship with her. As my mother's foot pressed down on the pedal, one of her last thoughts was probably something like, "See if you ever threaten to keep Mike from his son again."
I sighed, shaking my head. "Wow."
Derek nodded his agreement. "Yeah."