Page 33 of Shake Up My Life

Jerking my chin, I look over his shoulder and Tanner is there, a backpack in her hand. “Yeah?” I ask. “Looks like you’re wrong.”

TANNER

Brent is so angry. I know that he is, and he probably has a right to be to some degree. He helped raise me. My mom was only locked up about two years ago, but Brent has been the only parental figure that I have and have ever really had. However, I’m an adult and I’m pregnant.

Biting the corner of my lip, I make my way toward him. I suck in a breath and nod my head once as I look up at him.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m really sorry, Brent.”

He shakes his head slowly. “Don’t do this, Tanner. Do not throw your life away. Not on this, not like this.” He’s begging me, I can hear the pleading in his tone.

Nodding my head once, I look into his eyes, taking him in and hoping that he sees me. Really sees me. He doesn’t say anything right away.

He is good and pissed off, which I know he has every right to be. I’ve done everything that he’s never wanted me to do. I have no career, I’m with someone who is clearly not on the up-and-up in society, and I’m pregnant while not being married.

“I’m sorry, Brent. I’m not doing thistoyou, to hurt you in any way. I have to try though. There is something there with Wesley. Even if it doesn’t work out, I can say that I tried. That I tried to give this baby a normal family.”

Brent snorts, his gaze flicking behind me to Wesley before he shifts it back to meet my own. “There will be nothing normal about your life with him, Tanner. You’ll be lucky if you even make it out alive. They’re all a bunch of murderers, junkies, drug dealers, pimps, and whatever else they do that I haven’t been able to figure out yet.”

Wesley clears his throat behind me but thankfully doesn’t say anything that would make this situation worse. I have a feeling that he has plenty to say though. And honestly, the way that Brent is being, I wouldn’t blame him at all.

“I’m sorry you feel that way. This is something I am going to do, so I apologize that you’re so upset by my life choices.”

Brent shakes his head, clenching his jaw as he does, then he speaks, and I know that it’s the last of this conversation when he does.

“I’m not upset by your life choices. I’m disappointed. Don’t come running back here when he beats the shit out of you. Don’t call me when he gets you arrested. You don’t know me anymore. You aren’t my sister and I’m not your brother.”

“Brent,” Jenna gasps.

Holding up my hand to Jenna so that she doesn’t say anything, my gaze stays on Brent’s for a long moment before I speak.

“I really hope that you don’t mean all of those things, Brent. You’re my only family and you’re going to be an uncle. I would hate to think that you wouldn’t want anything to do with us because of who I choose to have in my life. Who the father of my baby is. I won’t take seriously or personally anything that you’ve said today out of anger.”

“Take it seriously and fucking personally,” Brent snaps. “Take it straight to fucking heart, because I mean this shit, one hundred percent. Do not knock on my door when you have discovered that you made the wrong goddamn choice.”

“Tanner,” Wesley murmurs. “It’s time to go.”

He’s right.

It is time to go.

My brother isn’t going to change his mind. He isn’t going to suddenly decide to be kind to me. To accept this or me. He just isn’t, and it makes my heart hurt. It makes me want to curl into a ball and cry. I don’t do that. Nodding my head once, I take one last long look into Brent’s eyes before I turn my back to him.

I just hope that I can prove to him that this choice is the right choice and that one day he can forgive me. Even if he tells me that I need to take his words to heart, I don’t, because I know deep down Brent is a good man. He’s just angry right now.

“Yes, it is,” I say to Wesley.

He gives me a sad smile, reaches for my backpack with one hand, and extends his other palm. Slipping my hand in his, together we walk away from my brother, from our life together. I don’t know what tomorrow is going to bring, if this is the biggest mistake of my life or not. All I know is that I will regret not taking this leap.

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