Until Lexi

9

LEXI

Jake reaches over and gives my knee a squeeze. My leg stills instantly. He slides his hand up my thigh and leaves it there, allowing the warmth of his palm to soak through the jeans I’m wearing. The heat is calming, reassuring.

Sitting in this bland, boring waiting room has me on edge, and I’m not the only one.

Penny sits on my other side with a book in her hand. She’s using it as a distraction, but the fact that she hasn’t turned a single page in more than ten minutes says more than her silence ever could.

We hate this.

Being here.

Waiting while Mercy and Riley have their cheeks swabbed and blood drawn.

It’s fucking awful.

We never thought Mercy’s paternity mattered. Until now. Until Jake showed up out of nowhere and uncovered things that were obviously never meant to come to light. Hope might think knowing who fathered Mercy shouldn’t matter, but if there’s a chance she has a father out there who wants to be part of her life and will be good to her—she deserves to know him. We wouldn’t put her through this otherwise.

The other alternative… I try not to think about it. I know we’re all secretly praying that Noah is Mercy’s father. It’s too hard to consider what would happen if he’s not. We wouldn’t love Mercy any less, of course. But Hope… Hope is barely holding on. We couldn’t even convince her to come today. It’s like she’s completely checked out. Thankfully, we don’t need her here since Penny is Mercy’s legal guardian. Because Hope wants nothing to do with any of this.

Too damn bad.

She might have gotten out of coming today, but she eventually has to come to terms with the fact that she can’t keep sticking her head in the sand. I understand why she kept her secrets, and I can’t imagine how difficult the choice must have been, but they affect too many people to keep them any longer. Hope likes to pretend that the past doesn’t affect the present. She’s about to get a big dose of reality when these results come in. One way or another, Hope is going to have to face the consequences of the choice she made more than five years ago.

Reaching over, I take hold of Penny’s hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.

Leaning in, I whisper, “It’s gonna be okay.” She squeezes my hand back but doesn’t respond. “You can still go back if you want to,” I offer.

She should have gone back with them when Mercy and Riley were called, but for whatever reason, she chose to wait out here with me. She claims she didn’t want to hover and overcrowd the small exam room.

That’s some bullshit if I’ve ever heard any.

She’s worried about all the same things burdening me.

“I’m fine,” she says, knowing damn well neither of us are fine. “I don’t want to leave you alone.”

“I’m not alone,” I remind her quietly.

She gives me a look before both of us slowly turn our heads to look at Jake.

Nobody questioned it when I asked him to be here today.

But I know the questions are coming.

I haven’t told Riley and Penny much about what’s happening between me and Jake. Let’s be honest… it’s a conversation I’ve avoided on purpose. How can I explain what’s happening between us when I don’t even know? Do I tell them I’m captivated by him? That there’s some crazy, magnetic connection between the two of us?

How do I open up like that?

I’ve always been independent and self-sufficient.

I’ve never needed a man in my life to make me happy.

Doesn’t mean I haven’t wanted one.

Riley, Penny, Hope and I… we may be close, but it’s quite obvious that even among family there are certain things we don’t talk about. Every single one of us has some type of hang-up that we keep to ourselves.

For me, it’s relationships.

I want someone to love.

And nobody knows it but me.

That’s my big secret.

I envy the hell out of all the happy, loved-up couples I see on the streets. I get downright fucking jealous every time someone I know finds their other half and trips over themselves, falling head-over-fucking-heels in love. I covet what they have, greedy to have it for myself.

Sometimes my stupid heart aches.

Useless muscle.

Wanting for what it can’t have.

Hours. Minutes. Days. Years.

I’ve spent far too much time trying to convince myself that I’m not desperate for someone to love me.

Every single second of it’s a lie.

It’s something I want more than anything.

Not that I’ll ever have it.

My own mother couldn’t even love me.

“I’m curious,” Jake says, pulling me from my thoughts. “Why does Penny have custody of Mercy, and not Hope?

Ah, of course he picked up on that.

“Hope isn’t fit to be a mother.”

It’s the truth, but damn. Penny didn’t need to say it like that.

She’s been moody as fuck since the truth about Mercy came out. Those hang-ups I mentioned? Penny’s has something to do with Hope’s situation.

“Harsh, Pen.”

She rolls her eyes and huffs out a breath, turning her attention to Jake.

“Hope didn’t want to have a baby. She’d never consider an abortion, but after she found out she was pregnant, she never intended on keeping Mercy. She wanted to give her up for adoption.”

“At least now we know why,” I mutter.

Another sigh, and Penny continues. “We respected her decision and gave her our full support, but at the last minute, she changed her mind. I can’t blame her. We’ve seen firsthand how easy it is for the system to fail, for kids to slip through the cracks. Hope may not have wanted Mercy, but she didn’t want that life for her either.” She pauses for a minute, seemingly thinking about her next words. Her expression softens a bit. “Hope is fucked up. I don’t say it to be mean. I’m simply stating a fact. She’s fucked up. We know it. She knows it. She’s so self-aware of her issues that she knew she couldn’t raise Mercy on her own. She tried, for a while, but she couldn’t deal. It was like she had a total aversion to being a mother. I don’t know how anyone can look at Mercy and feel nothing.”

Penny gets choked up, so I give her hand another squeeze and decide to take over.

“Hope decided she wanted to give her up, but by then, none of us were willing to let that happen. We loved that little girl the minute we laid eyes on her. Mercy wasn’t going anywhere if we had anything to say about it, and we all had plenty to say.”

“I told Hope that if she wanted to give Mercy up so badly, she could give her to me,” Penny says, tears still swimming in her eyes. “It didn’t take much to convince her. I still think she would’ve preferred to wipe her hands completely of Mercy, but I couldn’t let her go. We’ve all suffered way too much, and losing Mercy? It would have destroyed us.”

“Hope signed away her rights, allowing Penny to adopt Mercy, legally,” I explain. “It was much harder than we thought it would be, even with Penny being a blood relative. Legal adoptions take tons of time and money, but we pulled together to make it happen. Mercy knows that Hope is her mom, but they don’t have much of a relationship. Hope is involved with Mercy as little as possible. She goes through periods where she seems like she’s trying, but they never last long. She’s always kept Mercy at arm’s length.”

Something in Penny breaks.

She bursts into gut-wrenching sobs, leaving Jake and I wondering what the fuck happened. Seems to be a common thing lately. I wrap my arms around her, providing the only kind of comfort I can. Jake sits stoically, watching the two of us with a concerned gaze.

After several minutes, Penny’s tears slow to sniffles and hiccups. A couple more minutes after that, she speaks again, voice barely audible.

“Is it our fault Hope is so broken?”

“Penny, no. Why would you think that?”

“You said it, Lexi. We know exactly why she insisted on giving Mercy up. All these years… it’s hurt her having Mercy around. Did we make things worse for her?”

My heart stutters in my chest and I shut down.

My expression shutters to mask my pain.

Penny doesn’t realize what her words are doing to me, but Jake knows.

He’s the only one that would.

“Don’t put that on yourself, Penny,” Jake says, voice firm, “it’s not your fault.”

“But—”

“No!” I force out in a hushed whisper, pushing my feelings down to deal with later. “Hope could have fucking said something, Penny! She had years to say something, to tell us the truth. I love Hope like a sister, but you were right when you said she’s selfish. She may have suffered through her trauma, but it affected all of us and she never once considered that. Hope made her own choices, and she’s suffering for them now. We’ve tried so many times to get her help, but she doesn’t even want to try. Her mental health isn’t our responsibility. We can’t make everything better for her. She has to take responsibility at some point, Pen.”

Penny doesn’t say anything else.

She doesn’t need to.

We’re all victims of Hope’s self-serving attitude.

She’s family, and we love her, but enough is enough.

At this point, we’re only enabling her by ignoring her problems.

She needs help.

Riley picks that moment to walk back into the waiting room, holding Mercy’s hand. Mercy pulls away, making a beeline straight for Penny, who stands and takes her hand, leading her straight out of the office without looking back. Riley shoots me a questioning look, clearly sensing the tension in the air.

“I’ll explain later,” I tell her, watching Penny’s retreating back.

Riley watches them too, following their path across the parking lot through the window.

“Hope should have been here.”