Chapter 15
Zoe
My phone vibrates in my hand for the third time in the last minute.
I don’t dare call. I sit in my car in the club parking lot while the rest of my teammates are probably already out on the field. I skip training. I can’t breathe right enough to run.
I just stare at the screen like I can rewrite it with willpower.
Email from Yvonne. Subject line: “Decision issued. Call me as soon as you can.”
Five days waiting on the judge.
Five days of sleeping like trash, eating like trash, thinking like trash. Burning through my coach’s patience with my sloppy play. Risking the contract renewal that suddenly means nothing next to my son.
And now the decision sits in my inbox and I can’t open it.
I finally force a breath, pull my courage up by the roots, and dial my attorney. There’s no point delaying it. My hands shake anyway.
One ring. Two.
“Zoe,” Yvonne says. Her voice stays neutral, professional. No hint of good or bad. “Are you sitting down?”
My stomach drops.
“Yeah.”
“The judge has issued her order.”
“I saw your message,” I whisper.
“Nate gets one weekend every other week,” she says. “Friday evening to Sunday night.”
I can’t breathe.
“Zoe? Are you still there?”
“Every other week,” I repeat. “That’s… that’s more than he had.”
“Yes.”
“So he wins,” I exhale, sinking back against the seat and dragging a hand through my hair.
“No. Listen to me.” Yvonne’s tone sharpens. “Nate asked for fifty-fifty custody. He wanted Wesley half the time. He wanted alternating holidays, summers split down the middle, authority to veto decisions about school and health. He got none of that.”
Silence. I try to speak and nothing comes out.
“The judge gave him four days a month, Zoe,” Yvonne continues. “Four out of thirty. No decision-making power on anything major. No right to change your work schedule or your team travel. You keep full authority.”
“But before, he had nothing.” My voice cracks. “Before, it was supervised visits when I decided. That’s it.”
“Before, Nate hadn’t gone to court,” Yvonne says.
“Before, he hadn’t filed a formal petition with exhibits and witnesses and a two-hundred-dollar-an-hour attorney.
Zoe, this is a win. The language is clear.
It recognizes your stability, your support network, Wesley’s well-being in your care.
It specifically cites the Florida documentation and the pediatrician’s reports. ”
“It doesn’t feel like a win,” I admit, pressing my forehead to the steering wheel.
“I know.” Her voice softens a notch. “It never feels like a win when you have to give something up. But believe me, Nate expected more. His attorney expected more. This is a loss for them.”
“And review? Is there a review?”
“In six months,” she admits, voice dropping low. “But don’t let that scare you. It’s standard. It won’t be a problem unless there’s a significant change in circumstances.”
I go quiet. It hits like ice water.
“Zoe?”
“I’m here.”
“You did it,” Yvonne says. “Really. I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but when the shock wears off… you did it.”
I hang up.
I stay in the car, staring at the parking lot, trying to process.
Wesley will spend one weekend every other week with Nate. With his influencer girlfriend who needs baby photos for her feed. With the man who uses my kid like a weapon.
Even if it’s only four days a month.
And I’m still the one who decides his schooling, his health, his life.
Nate wants half and only gets a weekend every other week.
I catch myself in the rearview mirror and realize I’m crying. I don’t know if it’s relief or rage or pure exhaustion. Probably all three.
Tessa is in my kitchen when I get home.
I don't know how she got here before me. I don't know how she knew she needed to be here, but she is. Standing by the counter with Wesley on her hip and a bottle warming in the microwave.
“I know,” she says before I can speak. “Yvonne called me.”
I drop my gym bag on the floor and stand in the doorway like my body forgets how to move.
“One weekend every other week,” I say.
“Yeah.”
“That’s four days a month, because Friday barely counts. You hand him over practically asleep,” Tessa reminds me.
“Yeah.” I swallow. “It’s not… not what I want.”
Tessa sets Wesley into his high chair and crosses the kitchen in small steps until she’s right in front of me.
“What did you want?” she asks, and she rests her forehead against mine.
“I want him to have nothing,” I say. My voice shakes. “I want him to disappear. I want Wesley to never spend a night in that house with that woman pretending she’s his mother. I want—”
“I know,” Tessa cuts in.
“But I guess I can’t ask for that.” My mouth tastes bitter. “Because Nate’s his dad and he has rights. The system doesn’t work like that.”
Tears flood my eyes again, and Tessa wipes them away one by one with her thumbs.
Then she hugs me. No speeches. No fixing. Just holding me while I cry into her neck, full of rage and relief and everything in the middle.
Wesley says something from the high chair. Something that sounds like “mama,” even though it’s probably just noise.
“I’m okay. Really,” I mumble against Tessa’s skin.
“You don’t have to be okay,” she says, stroking my back.
“I know. But I am.” I breathe in and out, slow. “Or I will be. We won, right? In the end, we won. That’s what matters.”
“We won,” she repeats.
I pull back and lift Wesley out of the high chair. I hug him to my chest while he grabs my hair with sticky fingers from whatever he’s been eating.
“You’re going to spend some weekends with Dad,” I tell him. “Not many. Just some. And Mom’s going to be here waiting every time you come back. And Tess too, okay?”
Wesley stares at me with that serious face he makes when he’s trying to understand the universe.
“Bah,” he mutters.
“Exactly,” I whisper. “Well said, kiddo.”