“So, Hayley is your boy’s mother?” I need to clear it all up. “Is that right?”
“Alex’s mother, yes. But she left me a while back for another man. She walked out on me and Alex for the guy she was cheating on me with and she hasn’t looked back since. She hasn’t seen Alex at all.”
Okay, so I guess that explains the need for the nanny. I’m slowly trying to put this all together.
“She hasn’t even bothered with him, Mia, not at all. She hasn’t been to see him even once. She’s only doing this now because she wants money. She needs ten million dollars and it fucking sucks.”
“Woah…” That’s an amount of money that I don’t even understand. I can’t even comprehend it. “What for?”
“The guy that she left me for has got himself into debt and trouble too, she needs to get them out of it. Then she’s also going to leave the country apparently, which is the only good thing.”
“That’s messed up. Why should you have to pay for it? It’s not your problem.”
“I know it isn’t. That’s what is getting to me. I’m also really freaked out because if I give her money will she think that it’s okay to do this again? I can’t have Alex traumatized.”
His phone bleeps and he stares at the screen. I see a very haunted familiar face come out and it makes me realize that all of the messages have been from her. I was worried they were, but I didn’t get the gist of it. I didn’t realize that they were bad messages, threatening their child.
“Okay, she’s given me an address now to meet her at eight o clock. I don’t recognize it, so it’s probably somewhere dodgy. I need to take the ten million there to get my child back.”
I glance around, now panicking that whoever these dangerous people might be could be here, after Noah, tracking him viz his cell phone or something. That might be a bit spy movie to be the truth, but then all of this feels incredibly unreal to me. I don’t know what the hell is going on inside my head.
“I think we need to get away from here, Noah, while we try to figure out what we’re doing.”
“I can’t go anywhere, I need to… to get some money out…”
“How are you going to get ten million out of your account? I don’t think they will take a check.”
“Hayley knows me. She knows that I can get my hands on it.”
God, who is this man? I made him take me to a tacky pizza shop to eat and he can ‘get his hands on ten million dollars’. I don’t understand him. Maybe I didn’t ever know him at all. I thought that he was rich, that much is obvious, but I didn’t know how wealthy. Why the hell did he ever even look my way?
“Okay, so we need to get some space away from all the crowds of people. You need to think…”
“I don’t need to think, this is my child! I need h
im back.”
I gup noisily, trying to suck back all my fear. “I know you do, and I’m going to help you with that?”
“You are? This is a pretty fucked up situation, I don’t expect you to get involved.”
“I know, but I am involved and I want to help you.”
I think I will always want to help him, no matter what is going on. So much for the first day of the rest of my life. I’m here with Noah, prepared to leave with him. But he needs me. I will be there for him.
“You are something else, Mia, I don’t understand why you would do this for me. You’re amazing.”
I wrap and arm around him and lead him away, thinking about a cheating ex, a huge debt, ten million dollars, and a kidnapping. Christ, I thought that my issues were huge, I assumed that I had baggage, but he’s got lots more. He’s got so much it’s amazing that he’s even standing up straight under the weight of it all.
“Let’s get somewhere we can make all the calls we need to.”
“I don’t live far from here. Let’s go to my place. I think Jenny might still be there so I can reassure her.”
As we walk, I try not to get blown away by the houses that we’re passing. I suppose if he can get his hands on ten million dollars he must live in a grand, extravagant place like this. I will just need to get used to the fact that he comes from a completely different world to me.
A world where the mother of his child kidnaps the kid for money… so probably not a better world. A world where mothers don’t actually care for their children, instead they use them as pawns in a messed up game. My family situation wasn’t ever perfect but it wasn’t ever like this. It was definitely normal. But I better not get too wrapped up in how messed up all of it is, because I need my head on straight to assist him.
He needs me and I will do whatever I can to help him get through this.