“What are you doing?”
“Coloring,” I hear Peyton respond. My heart stops and my stomach falls. I close my eyes and pray that she hasn’t done too much damage to Josie’s living room wall.
My steps are tentative. I’m afraid of what I’m going to find when I walk into the room. Both girls are laughing as I enter. Harrison catches my eye briefly before he turns away. My mouth drops in shock. Peyton is sitting on Harrison’s lap with a marker in her hand and Elle is sitting next to him.
I walk around the front of them to get a better look. Both my girls are coloring on Harrison, filling in his tattoos, bringing them more to life than they already are. “What are you doing?” I ask in shock, repeating Elle’s earlier question.
Peyton sighs. “Coloring.”
“I see that, but why?”
“Because Harrison is a real life coloring book.” Harrison laughs along with Peyton. Her laughter is music to my ears. He’s found a way to make her laugh, and I can’t even thank him.
I look at Harrison, who isn’t looking at me. I just want to see his green orbs so I know that this is okay, but he’s focusing on the girls. He’s ignoring me, and rightly so after what I’ve done.
I stand back and watch Peyton interact with Harrison. He moves when she asks him to and even holds the markers for her. I don’t know what happened while I was gone, but something changed for them. I’m not sure how I feel about it now that he’s not going to be around, but I know I like that she’s responding to someone other than just Liam.
Harrison looks relaxed and he’s clearly enjoying himself, pointing out places that have been missed. I try not to stare, but can’t help it. He has both my girls wrapped around his finger like he was meant to be in their lives.
“What did you do to your hand?”
For the first time since I’ve been here, he looks at me. His lips are in a thin line. I recoil and shrink back into myself. I have to look away for fear I’d start crying under his gaze. He doesn’t answer, but goes back to paying attention to the girls.
“Are you going to answer me?” I ask again. I know my tone is demanding, but I can’t help it.
“Don’t do this in front of the girls,” he says quietly. Both of them look at me, confused. I don’t know if he’s trying to placate me or what, but it’s not working. Peyton glares at me before she goes back to coloring. “I’ll be right back,” he says to them. They groan and huff, but let him get up. I watch as he leaves the room, knowing I should follow, but I can’t make my legs and feet cooperate.
Both girls are staring at me, wondering what just happened. I have no idea how I’m going to tell them that Harrison won’t be around anymore. I finally relent and go look for him. I square my shoulders when I find him at the kitchen sink. He stands with his back toward me. I want to reach out and touch him. Trace my fingers over the newest ink placed on his arms by my daughters, but I can’t. I have to let go and move on. We aren’t right for each other.
“Harrison,” I say, alerting him to my presence. I see his back visibly stiffen and wonder how he went from being comfortable to this awkward stance so quickly. Is it that easy to just shut off emotions?
He sets his glass down hard. I jump at the sound of it hitting the counter top. He leans forward, even farther away from me. “What do you want, Katelyn?”
I want to yell out that he’s the one I want, but I can’t. I won’t be something he keeps on the side. I need to be everything to him. I need to matter.
“What happened to your hand?” I ask again, more for curiosity than anything. He holds up his casted hand, one that has been colored with gold and silver markers and twists it in the air. He doesn’t turn around to address me and that bothers me.
“I hit a wall and broke it in two places. Anything else you want to know about me?”
“N… no,” my voice is quiet as the word gets stuck. He pushes away from the counter and walks to me, stopping when we are shoulder to shoulder. There’s no eye contact. There’s no touching.
“All you had to do was trust me.”
He walks away without looking back, without waiting for me to catch up. He talks about trust, but I can’t, not with what I’ve been told. Not with what I’ve seen. Photos don’t lie, do they?
I walk back into the living room, but stop at the entry and watch Harrison interact with the twins. They’re being their usual selves by acting like monkeys and he doesn’t even care. He’s not fazed by them in the least. He tickles them and their laughter is music to my ears. He’s bringing it out of them in droves.
Why can’t life be as simple as laughter?
IT’S been three weeks since shit hit the fan and my life imploded. Twenty-one days since a malicious lie ripped out my heart out and destroyed my chance at happiness. I can’t even count the hours, because there are too many. All I know is that I hate the emptiness I feel each day when I wake up, and the loneliness that threatens to consume me at night. There hasn’t been a moment that I haven’t thought about revenge. I’ve waited for Alicia to call or show up, but she hasn’t, and today I’ll see her in court. I really want to ask her why. Why go through the trouble of destroying my life if she wasn’t planning on showing up like she told Katelyn and Josie she was?
Liam is determined to beat Sam at her own game. He wants her far away from him before the wedding. I don’t blame him. She’s dangerous. We should’ve seen the signs a long time ago, but we were young and stupid, and she made being in a band easy. Liam hired a private investigator and turned over all the evidence he uncovered himself. Within a week, we had enough to go to a judge and ask for help. So now we’re sitting here, waiting.
Waiting is the hard part. It makes me anxious. I stare down each woman that walks into the courthouse
, wondering if it’s Alicia. Aside from the doctored images she produced with her face, I haven’t seen her in eight years. The way Josie described her doesn’t fit the picture I have of her from that fateful night. I’ve hidden the photos of us in my room for when Quinn asks about her. I want to be able to show him that yes, we were smiling at one time in our lives. I’m not sure how, or even if I’ll ever tell him about that night. I’d like him to make his own decisions about his mother, and not be forced by what she did to me. I wouldn’t be able to tell him anyway, other than what she told me. Remembering that night is like staring off into space – nothing’s there.
I’ll be asking a family judge to issue a no contact order against Alicia. She hasn’t done any physical harm to Quinn or me, so a restraining order is out of the question, but as his primary legal guardian, I can ask that she’s not allowed to contact him until he turns eighteen. My lawyer seems to think that we shouldn’t have any problems obtaining this. She’s hasn’t shown any interest in Quinn, just me as of late, so there’s no need for her to be near him until he’s old enough to make that decision on his own.