Dare To Love Again

“And whose fault is that? Didn’t you do the same thing to me, you absolute fucking…?” He stopped and looked down at the baby who was looking up at him warily, almost as if he sensed the anger in his daddy. Calen stepped back and ran his hand over the back of his head the way he always does when frustrated before turning back to me.

“You’re lucky I haven’t already broken your fucking neck, you’d do well to not say another fucking word in my presence. From now on, what I do with my son has nothing to do with you. Don’t even think about getting in my way. And before you look at me like that, remember that this is your doing.” His voice had lost some of the heat for our son’s sake, but each word pierced me like a well-aimed dagger

I’ve seen Calen mad before but never at me, and never this vicious. But it was the look on his face more so than his words that had cut me to the core. The light that had always been there when he looked at me was no more. All I saw there were disgust and hate. It was as if all those many warm nights spent wrapped around each other had never been. The man looking back at me was nothing more than a stranger.

I can’t say that I was surprised when he made the decision to take his son against my wishes. That’s why we were at the mall waiting for him now. He’d left the apartment after telling me he had some things to take care of before coming back to us. I didn’t dare ask him what things, and after overhearing him on the phone ordering someone to come sit outside my apartment, I didn’t know if to be relieved or fearful.

The fear I felt for my mother paled in comparison to what I now felt for Calen, the man I’d loved with my whole being. He’d always been gentle with me and had always gone out of his way to shield me from what he used to call his more volatile side, something I’d seen only once when a colleague had gotten too close one night in a drunken stupor.

I thought Calen was going to kill the man until Donovan, the same friend who’d found me, and the baby at the mall had stepped in and cooled things down. I’d since learned that Calen had destroyed some deal he and the other man had been working on, something that had cost the other man millions. All because he’d made a pass at me while intoxicated.

I got out of the car now and walked around to get the baby, but Calen beat me to it. He’d climbed from the backseat at the same time, and I was just in time to see that he now had a car seat back there already and what looked like a mountain of packages, which the driver was now moving to the trunk of the luxury town car.

I stood almost stupefied as Calen reached in and unbuckled our son before lifting him in his arms. He didn’t say a word to me as he turned and started heading for the mall entrance, and I swallowed the hurt as I walked behind them. It warmed my heart, though when my baby chortled at me over his daddy’s shoulder and waved his little fingers at me.

I reached out to him, just to touch his fingers lightly, but the look Calen threw at me over his shoulder had me drawing back in surprise. He seemed to catch himself as he turned and started walking again. It’s obvious that it’s going to take time to get used to this new dynamic, but I’m not sure my heart can take it.

Eyes that used to watch me with such heat were now filled with ice. His heart had been locked off from me, and it was obvious that he only cared about his son. I didn’t know how much it would hurt. I’d made up my mind never to see him again in this life. I knew the pain of knowing what I’d lost would be too much to bear if our paths should ever cross.

At night I’d take out a memory from our time together and relive it in my lonely bed until I fell asleep. I never allowed myself to think of the present; of the life, he was probably living without me now that I was gone. I didn’t let myself think of what he must feel towards me, and the thought of him finding someone else which I knew would be no hardship for him was almost more than my poor heart could take. I didn’t know the half of it.