“I won’t be there tomorrow.” His tone is a bit bratty. “I’m staying in a motel tonight.”
I screw up my nose in confusion. “A motel? Why? Who with?” I suppose it isn’t really any of my business, I’m the one who’s done all the lying here, but I still want to know. A lot depends on it.
“Who with? I don’t know, probably by myself. It isn’t like I get a lot of offers these days.”
“Offers?” I actually feel a bit sick at his words. Is he actually being serious? He’s making comments about his lack of sex life while out drinking and staying in a motel God knows where. Talk about no respect.
“Oh, I don’t know, you know what I mean, don’t you? Yeah, you know.” I don’t know, but I’m not in the mood to get into an in depth conversation with him about this. All I really want to do is get him off the phone. “Anyway, I’m going to keep away while my head is all a mess, but then I’ll come and see Logan…”
“Woah, wait.” I need to put a stop to this before he ends up doing something really dumb. “You can’t come and see Logan, not until we’ve sorted this out. I need to know that you’re not going to dip in and out of his life. When you come into it, I want to know that it’s going to be forever. It has to be done right.”
My forehead burns with anger. I’m hot headed and crazy, but Kade needs to stop acting like this. He cannot fuck with a child’s life at whim. He can feel however he wants about me, but it’s different with Logan.
“You shouldn’t keep me away from him.” His tone turns grave now. It strikes a horrible coldness into my heart. “Now that I know about him, I want to be in his life. I want to be… hold on a moment.”
He talks to someone and I soon notice that it’s a woman’s voice. Alone, in a motel, my ass. He really is back to his old tricks, he’s out with other women, moving on as quickly from me like he does every single time. I should have known that he hasn’t changed. I really wish that I’d kept my mouth shut. As she giggles and he talks to her in what sounds like a muffled, flirty voice, my anger bursts off the scale. Again, I’m the one left breaking my heart over him, and again, he doesn’t give a shit at all.
“Lucie?” he finally comes back onto the phone. “I’m sorry about that, I have to…”
“Fuck you, Kade,” I spit down the line. “Fuck you to hell. You will always be this way. It’s time that I learn.” Embarrassment crashes through me, at the same speed as rage. “Never, ever again.”
Then I hang up the phone and I learn forward to clutch onto my knees. I’m panting, breathlessly, completely stripped of everything from that call. He’s taken every scrap of self dignity that I’d built up and now I have nothing all over again. I’m back to being the sad, lonely girl, sitting on the bathroom floor, clutching onto a positive pregnancy test and knowing that my life is going to change forever.
It takes me a while, but eventually I build up the confidence to go inside. Mom waits for me, she stares at me expectantly, but all I can do is shake my head. I communicate that everything is still a shit mess without actually having to say those dreaded words. Then, the tears really start to roll.
“Oh, my goodness, Lucie.” Mom wraps me up in her arms. “I know that this is a real shame, but just try to think of it as not much changing. You’ve don’t it on your own so far, and you’ve done a great job.”
“But… we weren’t rejected then,” I say while shaking with sobs. “Now, we are. Now, he doesn’t want us.”
Before, things could change as well. I always had the knowledge that things might be different in the long run, when I finally worked up the courage to tell him, but there isn’t any coming back from this. Now, I know that nothing will ever change again. Kade can tell me that he wants to see Logan when he’s drunk, but his actions speak far louder than his words. I’m sure that he’ll be gone before long.
Poor Logan, poor, poor Logan. I have let him down and I feel horrible for it.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Mom continues. “But you need to find that inner strength because it’s got you to this point. You can’t let him defeat you. You didn’t before and you can’t now.”
I nod and agree, acting the part, but inside I don’t feel like I can pull through once more. It was so challenging the first time, he hardest thing that I’ve ever had to do. I would like to think that I can again, but I can’t be sure. I don’t feel like I have any steel left inside of me now.
I leave Mom and I make my way up the stairs, but not all the way to my bedroom. Instead I go to Logan’s room and I perch on the edge of his bed, watching my little angel sleep. I love him so much, with all of my being, I want to give him happiness, I want to give him everything, I want him to have the family that he deserves. I think that’s what kills me the most, that I can’t give him that most basic thing.
“I’m sorry, Logan,” I mutter, as if he can hear me. “Sorry for everything. I didn’t think all of this would become such a problem when I had you. I didn’t know that it would mean so much.”
I don’t suppose that it will to him, it isn’t like he’ll know any different, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it myself. I lean down and I kiss him on the forehead, trying not to wake him as I do. He stirs a little, but not much. Thankfully, he’s a heavy sleeper. Something he gets from the father that it seems he’ll never know…
33
Kade
Urgh, what the hell? I force my eyes open, ignoring the horrible, groggy sensation, and I push myself into a sitting position. What the fuck did I get up to last night? Why do I feel like I’m going to die?
“Oh, you’re awake.” As I hear a distinctly female voice, my first instinct is to panic. If I can’t remember anything, then maybe I did something really crazy, but it soon hits me that it’s Mom and I’m fine. “You do realize that you’ve crashed out on the couch, don’t you? But I couldn’t carry you up to bed, the state that you were in.” Through my foggy vision, I can see her shaking her head at me. “You thought that you were at a motel and you kept saying all of this weird stuff about not being with a woman. What woman? I don’t get it.”
“Urgh, yeah I don’t know what that’s about.” I rub my head hard trying to get rid of the throbbing sensation. “I don’t know what happened, Mom, it’s all a bit of a blur if I’m honest. Any chance of a coffee?”
“Coffee?” she practically screams back. “You storm out of here yesterday, potentially about to unravel the biggest secret that our family has ever faces, and then you don’t come back until after midnight, stinking of booze and making absolutely no sense whatsoever. I’m not happy with you at all!”
He hands fall onto her hips and she glares at me. In the cold light of day, with agony radiating through my body, I can see that maybe she is right. I did act like a massive idiot yesterday. One thing I can remember through all the brain mush is calling Lucie and somehow fucking it right up all over again.
“He is my son, Mom,” I tell her quietly. “That’s why I panicked and got drunk. And before you tell me, I know that I’m an utter idiot. What I don’t know is what to do about it, how to make it right…”