Page 22 of Could Have Been Us
That’s the closest I’m getting to confessing anything.
He sighs deeply. “I get it. Sometimes they creep up on us.”
“Yeah.”
“Lately, I’ve been thinking of Yvonne,” Grayson admits.
My head jerks back. He never mentions her. “You what?”
“Amelia is growing, becoming more and more of her own person. I don’t know.” He runs his fingers through his hair, nervous energy around him. “I wonder if I’m fucking it all up. I’m a dude. What the hell do I know about raising a daughter?”
“You think her mother would do a better job?”
Grayson looks away. “No. I don’t, and she proved that when she left almost five years ago. How could she ever walk away from her? How could a woman give up her daughter without giving a shit? It blows my mind.”
I work extremely hard to keep my voice even. “Maybe she believed she was doing the right thing?”
He laughs without humor. “Yeah, the right thing for her. Not Amelia. She needed her fucking mother. She needed her, and Yvonne walked away. She’s a piece of shit, but she still is her mother.”
The fact that he’s unaware of the parallel he just drew between his ex and Stella makes me want to rage and defend her. While I don’t think Yvonne, who literally walked away from Grayson and Amelia because she wanted a job, and Stella, who was a kid trying to do the right thing for her daughter, are the same thing, it pisses me off.
Also, I’ve never once defended Yvonne, and I can’t start now.
“Yvonne was selfish. She doesn’t deserve Amelia.”
“No, but . . . I don’t know that anyone who walks away from their kids do.”
“What about adoption? Don’t you think there are valid reasons?”
Grayson seems surprised. “Of course there are. Yvonne didn’t give her daughter up for adoption. She abandoned her because she wanted a career and Amelia didn’t fit into that.”
I rub the brush against the tip of the boot a little harder. “In the end, I think her walking away was the best thing that happened to you and Amelia.”
He claps his hand on my shoulder. “I think so too because, if not, I wouldn’t have Jess and I wouldn’t be taking them to the beach house.”
I glance up at him as he smiles. “You’re going away, the three of you?”
He nods. “It’ll allow me to show Jessica what we could be if she’ll stay.”
“She’ll stay,” I tell him.
“I hope so, but if she won’t, then I’ll let her go and hope she returns.”
“Which is all any of us can do, right?”
“Yeah. I guess it is.”
It’s all I’ve been doing the last twelve years—letting Stella go and hoping one day I’ll be good enough for her.
Chapter 7
Stella
“Samuel?” I shake him, careful not to jostle him hard enough to knock him from the bar stool he’s passed out on. “Samuel, wake up.”
He moans, and the bartender looks at me. “He kept saying someone was coming,” he explains.
“How long as he been like this?” I ask.
