Page 26 of The Biggest Secret
“We’ll figure out how to co-parent. I won’t hurt him. And I won’t hurt you, but I can’t do this anymore. This back and forth with you. I don’t know what you were expecting by coming here. I don’t... I just... fuck.”
“Is it Grace?” I whisper, afraid to know the answer. Afraid to hear he’s moved on even though it was something I forced on him.
Grace told me he’d leave me. She told me he’d grow bored of my coming and going. She said that I didn’t know him like she did and that I should get out before he left me, that he had left her once, too, but that they kept finding each other along theway again.
She was meant to be with him. Not me.
“No!” he barks. “No, Grace is, she’s...” he sighs. “Grace and I need to have a conversation because that relationship will be the last thing on my mind right now.”
Hearing him say the word relationship and Grace in the same sentence makes me sad. I nod and walk towards the door. “I understand Adam. I didn’t come here to force us to be a family. Or to make the last few years disappear. I don’t know where I’m at either, but it’s been made very clear to me how bad I’ve hurt you. I hate myself for it. This isn’t who I am or who I want to be, and I don’t know how I got here but I don’t like it.” He’s not even looking at me, so I take that time to watch him. To take him all in. This man that I’ve loved since sophomore year of college. This man who I thought I’d marry and make a family with. All I’ve created is heartache. I quietly slip out the door and run home.
I enter my house again and find Chess on the couch.
“Wanna talk about it?”
I shake my head. “No. I just... no. I need to go to bed. Thanks for coming right over. I appreciate your help.”
“Anytime. You know that. Just ask.” She stands and heads to the door. But stops and turns to me.
“Do you love him?”
“It doesn’t matter if I do, he doesn’t love me back.”
“I think you’re wrong about that.”
I shake my head again. “I hurt him badly. There’s no coming back from that.”
“I think you’ll be surprised, CJ. Sometimes the paths we take aren’t straight. How boring would it be if they were, right?” she grins.
“I could go for some boring right now.”
She comes over and hugs me then heads to the door again. “I’ll check on you tomorrow. Let’s have drinks Friday. I think you could use a dose of us women,” she winks and steps out the door.
I lock up behind her and lean against the door.
What am I looking for? I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t know.
I do know.
I always knew.
Chapter Eighteen
ADAM
I show up to the job site after a night without sleep. I can’t stop replaying last night in my head. She didn’t say much. I did most of the talking and I’m not sure if that was good or bad.
I needed to get it out, needed to put into words the hurt I’ve felt since finding out about Dominic.
I was robbed of the excitement of becoming a dad. Robbed of the joy and congratulatory words from my brothers, and my parents. Robbed of the joy on their face when I got to tell them I was going to be a father.
Robbed of loving the mother of my son.
Billy is already here leading the guys. I don’t say it enough because he’d get a bigger ego than he already has, but I’m lucky to have him. He’s a hard worker, dedicated. It’s not just because he’s my brother. His ‘all work, all play, all the time’ attitude is who he is. What drives him. It’salso what got him into trouble, but I think he’s learning to balance it all now.
Mine on the other hand. ‘All work and no play’ has given me the surprise of a lifetime.
Maybe if I was more easy-going, more go with the flow, I wouldn’t be in the predicament I’m in right now.
