The Boy Next Door

“Leah? Can I come inside?” Jayson asked.

I didn’t really have a choice. He was standing right there in front of me. This wasn’t a phone call I could push off or a text I could just not answer and hope it disappeared after a while. Jayson was on my front porch and wanted to come in to talk to me. This wasn’t a moment I’d ever planned on happening. Not a moment I ever wanted to happen. But it was happening now, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I just had to deal with it as it came.

And be extremely thankful my parents had already left for church. I didn’t need to get them involved in this too. Not yet. I took a deep breath and opened the door more. I reluctantly stepped out of the way and gestured for him to come inside. Jayson stepped past me, and I shut the door behind him. That brought me to the end of the list of things I could think of to do in the situation, and I stood with my back against the door, staring at him. I wondered what the chances were he would just have a few words to say to me, then leave and go about his life satisfied with the closure.

I was thinking the chances weren’t good.

“Carter told me you were at the show last night,” he said.

Now I knew the chances weren’t good. I wasn’t going to be able to get him out of the house fast enough for everything to fall back into place the way it had been. Everything had been carrying on just as I’d intended it to for the last ten months. But there was no way that was going to continue now.

“I was,” I told him. “A couple weeks ago the news had a bit about the tour coming this way, so I got a ticket.”

He stared at me for a second, then shook his head slightly, his eyes narrowing. “Why didn’t you try to see me?”

“I thought it would be too hard,” I admitted.

That wasn’t exactly the way I intended to say it, but at that point there was no reason to keep trying to hide it. Jayson looked at me, the weight of his gaze on me heavy. There was so much behind his eyes, and I could feel it pressing down on me.

“Why did you leave without saying a word?” he asked.

I swallowed, trying to force down the emotion that was building up in my throat and aching through my jaw.

“At the last show I went to, Luke told Piper about the band going on tour. You hadn’t said anything to me about it, and I figured that meant you might be conflicted about the whole thing, so I helped you with the decision,” I told him.

“What are you talking about?” he asked. “What decision?”

“About us. You needed to go on the tour. It was a great opportunity. And I wasn’t going to stand in the way of that. But you are the kind of guy who would think twice about it. I didn’t want you to have to, so I made the decision for you,” I explained.

“I could have done both. I could have gone on the road and continued our relationship. I hadn’t told you about the tour yet because I was trying to get all the plans into place for all the times we would be able to see each other while I was on the road. We could have stayed together and just had a long-distance relationship while I was touring,” he said.

I shook my head, closing my eyes briefly to stop the words from sinking in too deep.

“You don’t understand,” I told him. “You just don’t understand.”

Jayson took a step closer to me and grabbed me by my upper arms.

“What don’t I understand? I don’t understand that I can’t stand being away from you? I don’t understand that I’m in love with you? That I need you? That I’d give anything and do anything to have you back?”

It was all so overwhelming, so much that I couldn’t get my mind to wrap around it. I could barely breathe. I couldn’t process what he was saying or how I was supposed to respond. I never intended on telling him what was going on, but even if I was ever was going to, this definitely wasn’t the way it was supposed to play out.

Then in that moment, the option got taken away from me. Just like I’d helped Jayson make the decision about the continuation of our future, my baby girl helped me make the decision about what I was going to tell Jayson. His eyes widened when he heard her start to cry. A long breath escaped my lungs. This was it. There was no point in trying to avoid it now. I took his hand and guided him through the house to my bedroom. A little white crib set up against the wall made up the nursery, and inside it, my daughter was fussing. Our daughter.