Page 86 of Deal Breaker
Everything inside me has gone still. It feels like the ground my feet are firmly planted on has cracked wide open and I’m standing at the chasm of a truth I didn’t see coming.
Landyn has a daughter.
I turn away from her, my eyes landing on the small TV mounted in the corner of the waiting room. It’s playing muted local news coverage. A fluorescent light flickers overhead. I try to ground myself in something, but it’s useless. Inside, everything is spinning out of control.
“Ford,” Landyn says, leaning closer to me. “Please. Say something.”
“What should I say?” I ask her, my voice hoarse. “You have a kid. You’re a mother. And in all this time, you didn’t tell me.”
She flinches like I slapped her. “I wanted to, Ford, I really did.”
“How old is she?” I ask, already knowing, already counting the years backward in my head.
“She’s six,” Landyn whispers.
“Six?” I repeat, the number catching like gravel in my throat.
Landyn nods.
I stand slowly. I don’t know what I’m doing, where I’m going. I just know I need to not be here anymore. My brain is suddenly running circles—doing the math, stitching moments together, breaking them back apart.
Jesus Christ.
I push a hand through my hair and step away from her. My pulse is thudding hard in my ears. There are too many people here. Too many eyes. Not enough oxygen.
“I need air,” I mutter.
I don’t wait for her to respond. I just walk away, pushing through the double doors and out into the parking lot. I pace the pavement, feeling like I’m coming out of my skin. The air is cold. Sharp. But it doesn’t touch the heat roaring in my chest.
I feel her behind me. She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t come any closer to me. I turn to find her watching me, her arms wrapped around her stomach.
“Jesus Christ.” I shake my head, heart pounding. “She’s mine, isn’t she?”
Silence.
“Answer me, Landyn,” I shout. “She’s mine, isn’t she?”
Then a whisper. “Yes.”
I exhale like I’ve been punched. My hands drop to my sides, and I look at her again. Really look. And everything is different now. She’s not just the woman I used to love, the one I never stopped wanting. She’s the mother of my child.
My daughter. I have a six-year-old daughter.
I step back, needing distance from her, needing space to breathe… but she moves toward me.
“I didn’t know how to tell you,” she says, the words coming quickly now. “And once I saw you again, it just—it got harder. I—Ford, I was scared. I didn’t want to ruin it all before we had a chance to fix what we lost.”
My jaw clenches. “You had six years to tell me, Landyn.”
Tears shine in her eyes, but she doesn’t look away. “I was 23 years old. I was terrified. I found out and I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t know how. And then I kept telling myself I’d do it when the timing was right, but the right time never came. And every year that passed, the truth got heavier and harder to say.”
I swallow hard, torn between anger and heartbreak and a thousand unanswered questions. “Does she know?”
“No,” she whispers. “She knows I loved someone once. That he was important to me. But she doesn’t know who you are.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and let the weight of it all settle into my bones. A daughter. I missed first steps. First words. First everything. I can still see her in my mind, walking out of the ER with Landyn’s dad. That little girl with her hair. With my grey eyes. The way she looked up at him, her small hand wrapped in his.
“You kept her from me,” I say. The words feel foreign in my mouth. Like they belong to someone else. “Forsix years, Landyn.”
