Page 67 of SEAL Mates

“I’m on a diet. I’m trying to only eat once a day, and besides I stopped eating meat again.”

“So, you really made all this for me. Not one of your boyfriend’s?” He chuckled as he threw his last bone on to the plate, and wiped his hands.

“I need to wash them. I’ll be back in a bit.”

I broke my diet as I sat down on the oak wooden bench opposite the kitchen and living space, where the guys usually had their breakfast. Blake told me that they usually didn't sit down. It would be an up, and out situation every morning.

I started to nibble like a mouse on the remaining fries I’d dished out. All my kids, except Kylie had a habit of leaving a small enough amount of food. So small, that no one could make a meal out of it. I’d told them to just finish it all the time, but there was something that made them feel guilty about finishing it. Yet, nothing about it having to be thrown away or their mom having to act like a human trashcan just so she didn’t have to throw away the food.

I was nervous.

More nervous than I’d been about moving in the house or anything else I’d done in my life. Maybe publishing my first book or giving birth for the first time and worrying that the little man wouldn’t be alright. Now that little man is twenty-six years old. He was six inches taller than I and had a crappy opinion of his mom. He didn’t need to voice it, it was written all over his face from the moment he asked if I was really living with three guys.

I didn’t hear him after no more nibbling on the fries but gobbling them up.

“Ah, so much for your diet,” he laughed as he sat opposite me.

“Yeah, I’m nervous. You know when I’m nervous, I always end up eating.”

“Nervous about what?” He quizzed as I had no more water to drink, no more fried fries and nothing to stop me talking.

“Talking to you about the past, but we don’t have enough time for all that. I just want you to know the truth.”

I paused to take a deep breath, his eyes were fixed on me.

“Some people grow up by going to university, some by getting married, others well, everyone does it at their own pace. Your dad was my boyfriend in uni, this part you know. I thought he loved me, and maybe he did in his own way, we were young and as much as I wanted you and went to have you. I knew that by doing so it would most likely be alone. I don’t want to turn this into a good guy, bad guy speech, but that was the way it was and back then it was all about having a baby could end your life and no more carrying on with your education. It didn’t work out that way and as a result, we moved on. I thought and had some childish expectation that he would one day run in to my arms and realize I was the love of his life. Instead he married the one his family chose for him and moved on with his life. Me. I was lost. Completely lost for a long time.”

He stood up, “Mother you don’t need to tell me all this…”

I stood up too, and with a stern voice said, “Sit down. I haven’t finished.”

“Well, all this is in the past. I ran to Greg’s dad. I knew he wasn’t right for me. He was the complete opposite, he’d never lived in the States. He’d told me time and time again he’d never had the benefits I’d had, and I believed him. I didn’t know that it was because he was a lazy, selfish and arrogant bastard. I’d spent so much money on him, and it was wrong to bring him over from Jamaica. It was wrong for me to bring him into our lives, but loneliness does some fucked up shit.”

He cringed, yeah swearing wasn’t really into my genes. Maybe it was hanging with the guys especially Blake who used it as if he was born to cuss. Either way, there was no way to describe a fucked up situation.

“I should have known he used me to come over to get his Green card. But that shouldn’t have stopped me from breaking up with him and having an affair. Things were bad, but I was tired from feeding his needs and not stopping the wedding. My biggest regret in life.”

“What?”

“Yeah.” I wondered if I should just tell him the whole story or leave some things out. Sometimes ignorance was bliss. One that he’d been living in and I didn’t want him to think bad of anyone. This was the problem and why I’d left it for so long for him to think bad of me, but nothing of the men I’d been with.

“I thought he was having an affair with Pete’s mom.”

“What Hayley?”

I nodded my head, I could see he was thinking if it could be the case, but he was wasting his time. What could he remember of his childhood friend when he was ten, when sometimes I would ask what he was up to on the same day and he would struggle to record that.

“Look. Maybe I was wrong, or not, but I knew one thing for sure, we weren’t right for each other. We had a baby, we tried for another and I lost it. Either way I kept doing things to try and fix and make it better. And the only thing he knew how to do was spend my money.”

“And ignore us!”

He pipped in, as if he’d remembered that part of the story. My second son hadn't seen his dad in over twelve years. Some part of me knew that it was better for him. Three was nothing to be gained from him being a part of his life, but at the end of the day, he was his father and I knew that it cut like a knife.

“As for the narcissistic last one. He’d manipulated me so much that I didn’t know where I was coming and going. I did things that I would never do. Cried. Got drunk and all the time I felt as if I was in this constant battle to please him. I lost weight, I was too sexy. I put on weight because I was too fat. I completely lost myself and I didn’t realize how much until I came here.”

He sighed, as no more was he looking at me, but the table.

“I didn’t realize he was that bad.”

I grinned as I scooted over to him.

“I let him. Don’t think of him as the bad guy, but me too. I had kids. I should have done better. The only thing is that at least he keeps in contact with his daughter even if it is for all the wrong reasons.”

This was part of the reason why I’d never had the talk with him. We sat and he talked about how he felt at the time. We cried and I connected with my son for the first time in such a long time. I knew that any day now I was going to leave and go back home, but for now I had the inspiration to write, spend time with three guys and more importantly spend time with my son.

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