Page 115 of Third and Ten

Is this really it? After being so terrified of failure that I avoided relationships for the better part of my life, have I really managed to become a self-fulfilling prophecy this quickly?

In hindsight, I realize I may have unfairly taken out some of my anger on JD. I hadn’t even thought he was capable of betraying me, and lashing out was more of a reflex than anything. But now I’m worried my reaction has caused irreparable damage to JD and Ethan’s relationship, too.

Then again, I’m not even confident that I can get Ethan back without JD’s help. I know I’m not enough to parent on my own, that’s for sure. I’ve barely even managed as long as I have because JD has been doing all the heavy lifting, yet I called him out for making a single mistake.

My mom walks into the kitchen. I wipe my nose and attempt to cover up the evidence of my latest emotional breakdown, probably the first of many that will happen by the end of the day.

“Morning.” I force a pathetic smile as I greet her, and she’s quiet when she sits across from me with her mug and a concerned frown. She hasn’t been around as much since starting her new job as a hospice nurse this past week, so I’ve been fortunate enough to avoid her pity until now.

“Tenley,” she begins. “I hate seeing you like this.”

I shake my head. “I’m fine. I’m just upset about Ethan.”

“Only Ethan?” she ventures, taking a sip of her coffee.

I stare down at my cup in silence, unable to answer without risking another full-on sob fest. I’d mentioned that JD and I had a disagreement when I told her about Ethan leaving the other night. It was an understatement, but I couldn’t bear to say anything else without falling apart again.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she offers.

“I don’t think I can,” I reply, my voice strained.

She furrows her brow. “Can you at least tell me whether I’m supposed to be mad at JD or feel sorry for him?”

I smile meekly. “Both.”

“Then you’re going to have to give me more than that,” she says and takes another drink.

I heave out a deep sigh. “He knew Ethan had been talking to Ryan, and he kept it from me. I was really upset, and rightfully so, but I probably overreacted and projected some of my other insecurities on him. Either way, I haven’t been doing the whole serious-relationship thing all that well, and he deserves better. But I knew from the beginning that I’d never be able to handle all of this.”

“What are you even talking about?” she asks, her eyes flashing.

I tick off my mistakes on my fingers. “I made Ethan feel like he was a burden and drove him away. I let JD chase me for months before I even considered dating him, and now I’ve ruined everything because I couldn’t trust him.”

She turns her mouth to the side as she considers everything. “First of all, you didn’t drive Ethan away. He’s a teenage boy facing some difficult and unfair circumstances, some of which are a result of the decisions your dad and I made. Don’t you dare put that blame on yourself.”

“Okay,” I concede. “But I did a terrible job of dealing with him the other night, and I haven’t been fair to JD.”

She regards me quietly for a minute before she speaks again. “Tenley, you haven’t really been afraid of getting stuck in Camellia all this time, have you?”

I shake my head.

“Then what?”

I look down as the tears flow again. “I’ve always figured that it’s safer to keep my distance than to fail at making a family of my own…because I’m not capable of caring for anyone,” I divulge, my heart beating faster as I finally say the words aloud. “I don’t have it in me to be as selfless as you. I’m just not cut out to be a wife or a mother.”

She narrows her eyes. “But you’ve always been selfless. You dedicated yourself to a career in which you serve women when they’re most vulnerable. You gave up your social life as a teenager to help me take care of Jude and Ethan. Even as a little girl, you learned to love football so your daddy could have someone to share that with. You dropped everything in Texas as soon as I called, resetting your entire life and agreeing to take custody of Ethan without question.”

“You had to ask me, though. I should have been here all that time, but I was so wrapped up in myself that I never considered you might need me. Better yet, I refused to even acknowledge the situation, just so I wouldn’t have to live with the guilt.”

“That’s not completely true. You were just needed elsewhere for a while,” she corrects me. She pauses before she begins again. “Tenley, you understand I didn’t just ask you to take on Ethan because I was tired of doing it myself, right? Your dad and I were worried you were missing out, and we wanted you to experience that kind of love.”

I’m silent as I grasp the significance of what she’s just said. The last few months of my life begin to make so much more sense. Ethan was a gift, and I’m an idiot for not seeing that.

But my parents’ love for me doesn’t completely fix the lack of confidence I have in myself.

“You’ve already done such a good job raising Ethan. Picking up where you left off doesn’t prove I have the right disposition for motherhood,” I say after a while.

“From what I hear, you have a great bedside manner, and we both know how much you love babies. Try again.”

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