Page 37 of Shot Through the Heart

Once again, I know she’s right. We were still teenagers who hadn’t figured out what we were doing past the camping trip.

But I keep circling back to all the years I missed.

My stomach flips and for a second, I’m convinced I might hurl. The white-hot anger I feel about what my mom did morphs, an ache like I’ve never felt before spreading across my chest.

“I missed so much.”

Doctor’s appointments. The entirety of Stella’s pregnancy. The birth of my daughter. Her first laugh, first food, first step…so many firsts were taken from me.

Stella’s blurred face pops in front of me. I try to clear my sight, but it only seems to make it worse.

“Grey,” she murmurs from where she’s kneeling in front of me. Her hands find my face, thumbs caressing my cheeks. The wetness on her fingers makes me jerk back and I stare blankly at her hands as it takes longer than it should to figure out why.

I reach up and touch my face, finding a steady stream of tears flowing. No matter how hard I try to stop them, they continue to fall.

Stella moves slowly, stretching her arms around me and pulling me in for a hug. I suck in a ragged breath, letting the lingering scent of her perfume ground me. We stay like that longer than I would have expected. It appears that years of feeling nothing were all bubbling up and waiting to spill out of my eyes all at once.

When I finally pull away, I pick Stella up to give her knees a rest and set her on the couch beside me.

“I want to meet her,” I say, holding my breath as she processes my words.

“Okay,” she whispers, and I finally exhale. “We need to take it slow, though. There’s no starting this and then deciding you’re not cut out to be a parent. She’s been through a lot this year with moving and a new daycare and I’ve worked hard to give her as much consistency as I can outside of that. I don’t want her to know that you’re her dad until you’re certain this is what you want…I won’t risk hurting her.”

I can’t even be offended by her decision. Stella is doing what she has done for the last five years—protecting Harper.

Whether we knew it or not, both of us were hurt deeply by my mother’s actions. It’s going to take time to rebuild the trust we once had. There’s no denying that I’m all in, though.

Stella owned my whole heart before she left, and I don’t need to dig deep to know she still does. She was and has always been the light of my life. When she left, she took a piece of me with her and now it’s slowly fitting back into place.

Except now, she’s given me an additional piece that I didn’t even know was missing.

“Stella, there’s no doubt in my mind that I want to be in my daughter’s life.” I leave off theand yours, knowing it would be too much for her to handle right now.

I can be patient. I will do whatever she says to gain back her trust and get through her walls until there isn’t a single doubt in her mind that I want both of them.

Love like ours doesn’t just disappear. It got bruised and buried over time, secrets and lies tried to tear us apart, but love never left. I just need to remind her of that.

ChapterThirteen

GREYSON

I’ve always been toldthat avoiding a problem won’t solve anything. It’s something that has been said to me more than once in my life, although it’s mostly been in reference to a struggle with school or hockey. Normally, I agree with the statement wholeheartedly.

Right now, though, I can’t guarantee that I can face my problem without losing my shit.

It’s been two days since I showed up at Stella’s door and learned the truth.

I could have stayed on her couch all night just listening to Stella talk about Harper. As she answered the endless stream of questions I had about our daughter, Stella showed pictures and videos to go with everything. Her camera roll was insanely full, a never-ending supply of captured moments that I’m thankful she had. Some were so similar, clearly taken seconds apart, but Harper’s facial expressions were slightly different. Stella said she just couldn’t bring herself to delete any, and honestly, I didn’t blame her.

There were even a couple that are now saved in my own camera roll too. Which also solved the problem of not having Stella’s number anymore.

She didn’t seem bothered by me texting her the following morning asking how Harper was feeling or if they needed anything. Then sent me an update that Harper was practically back to normal yesterday along with a picture of Harper on a little tricycle outside her house. If I hadn’t been on my way to practice, I probably would have turned my truck around and shown up just to watch Harper play outside in person.

It took every ounce of my self-control to wait until Sunday to meet my daughter. Not that I even had much free time at the moment since we’re only a month into hockey season. Tonight’s game is the final one in another three-day stretch, and the first two were both away games. Normally, I’d be taking the following day off and be dead to the world, but I wasn’t going to let anything prevent me from meeting Harper as soon as possible.

There was also the fact that I needed to have a conversation with my mother before then. For as much as I know that I need to confront her and find out why she kept this from me, I’ve been struggling with doing so in a way that will be productive.

I’ve never yelled at my mom, never so much as thought about raising my voice or even sassing her in the slightest. The anger that has been lingering under the surface for the last forty-eight hours is unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. Which is enough to tell me that I will most likely break the no yelling streak.

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