Chapter Twenty-Three
BecauseIwasstillfeeling like a child, I let Kara call out of work for me the next few days. There was no way I wanted to face Blake or Isaac before I was prepared for it, but I also couldn’t chance people seeing my face and assuming the worst. My mouth stayed swollen for the rest of the week, and a nasty bruise had marred the bottom half of my face, radiating out from my lips. My eyes were also swollen from all the crying I’d done. I looked and felt like a wreck.
Kara had been running interference for me, as well as everything else she was doing. She’d even taken a day off of work to stay home and hang out with me. Every time Isaac or Blake tried to reach me, she’d been blocking them, though. I just wasn’t ready to face them and she knew it. She’d threatened them plenty, but they still kept coming back. Blake had even brought flowers and an edible arrangement that both said he was sorry.
I didn’t know what to say to them. They needed to choose Julian. They loved their brother, and he needed to see that. As much as I didn’t want to find myself without them, I wanted them to be okay even more. I wanted Julian to come back to them and for them to heal. I’d messed their relationship up even more than Grace had. They all just needed to forget about me.
As I held Hank, I knew they couldn’t, though. I’d managed to intwine myself in their lives permanently. That just made me feel even worse about myself. Julian would never be free of me. Not really.
I wasn’t sure what came next. I knew that I couldn’t hide forever, though, so when Kara started making demands that I go to the grocery store with her, I gave in without too much of a fight. It was the middle of the day on a Saturday, and I figured I wouldn’t run into the triplets there.
I applied a lot of makeup to hide the state of my face and got Hank ready before letting Kara lead me out to her car. I buckled Hank in and sat in the front quietly while Kara drove.
Finally, she gave in to the need to check in on me. “How are you feeling today?”
I grunted. “I’m fine.”
“Uh-huh. You look fine.”
I glared at her for a second before pulling down the visor and checking out my makeup in the small mirror. “It’s fine. The makeup’s a little thick, but it’s not anything that is going to scare small children.”
She laughed. “I just meant your overall look. Your face looks fine. It’s your mental state that I’m more worried about.”
I watched the town go by out of my window and sighed. “I don’t know, Kara. I just… I’m sad. It didn’t take very long for them to crawl under my skin.”
“Obviously, you got under theirs, too. They’ve been calling nonstop.” She took my hand and held it. “I think you should call them back and try to work this out.”
“Did you ever think you would be trying to help me work out issues in a fucking reverse harem? Like, actively encouraging me to try my hardest to keep fucking three men at the same time?”
“You’re going to have to learn to watch your mouth in front of Hank soon. Or his first real word is going to be fucking.”
That brought a smile to my lips. “Like mine was, you mean?”
“Yeah. It wasn’t as cute as your smile suggests you think it was. Mom and Dad got in an awful fight over it. They each blamed each other and then me, somehow.” Kara shook her head. “I know that you’re panicking and thinking the worst about yourself, Mal. You’ve always done that. You cut yourself down so hard and fast. You’ve seen what bad parents and bad partners look like. You’re not going to make those same mistakes with Hank.”
I sighed and made the effort of putting my hair into a bun while I thought of what I wanted to say. “I feel like I’ve already made so many mistakes.”
“He’s a happy, healthy baby. He’s on track developmentally, and so far, he’s never even had a scratch. I’d say you’re doing pretty well. I’d dropped Taylor once by the time he was one.”
“I remember. Tyler just about had a stroke.”
“Yeah. So, you’re doing fine.”
“How can you say that after what I did with Julian?”
Kara parked in front of the grocery store on Main Street and turned to face me. “Because it’s all going to be fine in the end. I have a feeling.”
I pulled Hank out of the car and looked at my sister over the roof of her car. “I’m glad one of us feels any kind of positive.”
She grabbed a buggy someone had left in front of the store and brought it over to me so I could put Hank in it. “One of us is able to see more than her imagined failures.”
I focused on settling Hank in the buggy, and then we were in the store and our conversation went to being focused on what we were buying. Kara loaded up the cart like a madwoman while I meandered and added sweets when I saw them. I’d cleared the house out of everything fattening by way of my mouth. I was a stress eater. And a happy eater. And just an eater. I couldn’t help it.
Kara was mid-toss, throwing a bottle of ketchup into the cart, when her eyes went wide and her face scrunched up in the way that it did when she saw something she didn’t like. She immediately grabbed the front of the cart and started tugging me along. “Let’s go get stuff for salad.”
“Ugh, Kara. I don’t want salad. You’ve made me eat salad at least once a day. You’re going to give me a complex.”
“I’m only making you eat salads because the only other thing you’re eating is candy. Or cookies. Or all of the leftover valentine’s chocolates that Tyler got me.”