Page 19 of The Ruthless and the Strong

Lizzie

Monday morning,I found myself sitting home alone with only Hunter to keep me company. He was currently engrossed in a kids cartoon right now, and wasn’t paying me any attention.

Olivia had taken Emma to daycare before she went to work, and Mason had already left for work hours ago, saying something about a busy day ahead, though I wasn’t sure if that man had ever had a slow day at the office.

Olivia, on the other hand, worked part time for a theater company here in Chicago, in their marketing and production department. My best friend had found the job she loved, despite being a busy mom to a rambunctious two-year-old. We were both theater kids growing up, with her taking on more of a backstage role—never really having been one to crave the center of attention—whereas I had been into writing plays ever since the first time I had picked up Death of a Salesman.

Unlike me, who knew what I wanted to do with my life since I was little, Olivia had been a little lost in college, not knowing what to major in, and I knew a part of her had been afraid she might have to rely on Max for the rest of her life.

Though I didn’t think Max saw a problem in that. All she had to do was ask, and he would happily take care of her for the rest of his life.

I knew Olivia had always been a little envious of me and the fact that I had both parents with me, and I knew I was lucky. I knew I had been blessed growing up, with two parents who loved each other and my little brother and me very much, but I didn’t have someone like Max in my corner.

My mom, despite breaking out of gender norms, pursuing a career in mechanical engineering, and being one of the top workers at her firm, was still very traditional in every sense of the word. Unlike my dad, she wasn’t overly affectionate, and often had problems expressing herself.

I never really thought this was a problem growing up, until I found myself at nineteen and pregnant. My marriage to Sam had been arranged since the day I announced I was expecting Hunter, and perhaps a part of me always wanted to please her, to live up to her expectation and be someone she could be proud of, because I didn’t put up much of a fight against the marriage.

Neither did Sam, and I knew a lot of that had to do with him wanting to live up to the expectations of his cardiothoracic surgeon of a father.

We were two kids wanting to please our parents so badly, we made a life-altering decision that resulted in a marriage filled with cold silence and resentment.

We quietly married at the beginning of my second semester in college.

The original plan had been for us to marry in the summer, after Hunter was born, but then my grandparents had visited from Japan, and the wedding was moved up. While I was trying hard to live up to expectations with my mom, my mom had been trying to do the same with hers.

I knew my grandma didn’t want a wedding after the baby was born.

Then Max showed up on my wedding day and he had kissed me for the first time, and it had been everything I had dreamed it would be and so much more.

I didn’t even realize he had feelings for me until that day, though now that I was a little older, I could see the signs had been there all along. But it was too late.

He was too late.

And now that I was back and no longer married, I didn’t know if he still felt the same about me.

I caught him staring at me a couple of times throughout dinner the other night, but he never said anything to me. Never made his move, and a part of me was grateful, because I honestly didn’t know how I would react otherwise.

For so long, he had been my unrequited love. Someone I could look at, admire, but never someone I could make mine.

For all our life, he had been the only adult in Olivia’s life to give a shit about her, and for a brief part of it, he had been her guardian. He was also fourteen years older than me. That age gap didn’t seem like a big deal now that I was twenty-six and a mom, but it had been when I was still a teenager. I didn’t blame him for not treating me as anything more than Olivia’s best friend, and I didn’t know when he had seen me differently, but it shouldn’t matter now.

Not anymore.

Because even if Max still had even an ounce of feelings for me left, I saw in his eyes at dinner the other night that he wasn’t planning on doing anything about it. It was about the same time Hunter came up to us and asked when dinner would be.

Max had looked at us, and I swore I saw self-loathing in his eyes. Only I didn’t know why that was, considering Max had always been the perfect representation of everything good in this world, and a part of me didn’t want to know the real reason behind that look. Not at all.

I was afraid of ruining this perfect image I had of him, and I wondered what that said about me.

A knock at the front door brought me out of my musing, and I put my coffee mug down on the table before making my way over to it.

Hunter looked up at me, something in his eyes giving me pause. He almost looked anxious that I was leaving the room. I smiled reassuringly at him. “Mommy is just going to see who’s at the door, okay?”

“Okay,” he said and went back to his show. I must have imagined the anxiety in his eyes, because he looked like my carefree little boy now. I ruffled his head as I passed, taking my time to the front door. I doubt it would be anyone important, since no one knew I was back in Chicago, save for a few people.

I should have checked the peephole first to see who it was, but we were in a relatively safe neighborhood, and I was obviously not thinking clearly, because I opened the door and was caught by surprise when I saw Max standing there, his hands in the pockets of his pants.

“Max? What are you doing here?”

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