I Love You, I Hate You: Part 2

“Scar?” I ask, incredulously.

Sarah gasps and sits up again, nearly throwing her magazine onto the person beside her. The girl has always had a flair for the dramatics. “You know?”

“Yeah, I saw it this morning.”

Sarah’s mouth hangs open. She looks around, not for anything in particular except maybe the words she’s trying to find. She reaches over and touches my leg. “Are you okay? You’re taking this way better than I thought you would.”

I push her hand off me. The last thing I need is for Danika to think there’s something going on between Sarah and I. I’ve finally got a chance again, one I never thought existed. I’m not about to let her blow it. “I’m fine. Are you okay?”

Sarah snort-laughs and crosses her arms. The sound isn’t nearly as cute coming from her as it is from Danika. “I’m great, but I’m not the one who just found out I’ve had a kid all these years.”

I’ve what?

Glass shatters behind me. I turn to see a pale faced Danika staring at us. Her eyes wide, chin is quivering, frozen peach drink at her feet.

I slip my flip-flops back on and stand. Taking slow, measured steps. My mind races a million miles a minute. Kid? She kept our kid? “What is she talking about, Danika?”

18

Logan

“I…” Danika looks from me to Sarah to me again. “I…”

“Shit, Danika,” Sarah mumbles from behind me. “I’m sorry. I thought he knew.”

I take a step closer. Rethinking everything Danika said about the baby. She didn’t make things easy. Everything will be taken care of. She never said how. She never actually said she was having an abortion, which means Danika said she in the shower because we have a daughter.

I have a daughter.

“We have a kid?”

Danika swallows hard but stands up straighter. This can’t be easy for her, but it’s not easy for me, either. Every January I think about how Danika walked out of my life. How I was too young and stupid to say the things she needed me to say. Every time I see a toddler, I can’t help but wonder what our kid would have looked like. Feel the pit in my stomach grow because our baby never had a chance at life.

But it did.

She did.

“I’m not having this conversation with you.” Danika turns to walk away. I grab her arm. She tries to yank herself free but I hold on tight, probably too tight. “Let go, Logan.”

“No, you need to tell me about my daughter,” I demand.

Something inside Danika snaps. She slaps me across the face and yells, “Molly’s not yours. She’s mine. You didn’t care what happened to her back then, you don’t get to care about her now.”

“I didn’t care?” I boom. “You didn’t give me a chance to care!”

Melody Fox, the Hotel’s poolside manager, hurries over to us. She puts her hand on my shoulder and plasters on that fake smile of hers. “Guys, can we take this elsewhere? You’re disturbing the other guests.”

“Gladly.” Danika jerks free of my grip and turns.

“You don’t get to walk away, Danika. Not again.” I side step around Melody and chase after Danika, who has kicked her heels off and started running into the hotel.

I pick up the pace, but only make it a few steps before I’m jerked back by my shirt. “Logan!”

I stop for a second and look over my shoulder. Piper releases the back of my shirt and rests her hands on her big hips. “Let her go.”

Let her go? Is she crazy? Danika has taken my child from me, hidden my child from me for almost four years, and I am supposed to let her go? No. I can’t. “I have a kid, Piper. A fucking kid.”

“I know,” she says before I finish taking my first step.