Chapter 14
14
Peter
T he sound of the nursery door opening had my heart racing. When Jason had exited earlier, Jarrod and I questioned him about Katy’s state of mind, but all he did was shrug, telling us it wasn’t anything we didn’t know. She was tired, overwhelmed, and hurt. The same feelings we had, except in my case I’d swapped out hurt for shame and guilt.
I plastered a stiff smile on my face as I examined her. She’d lost some of the lines of fatigue from her body. Something that one good night of uninterrupted sleep could help with but wouldn’t fix entirely. Yet despite her body looking more refreshed, her eyes remained dull as if all life had been sucked from them. To someone who didn’t know everything that had happened, they think it was from lack of sleep, but I knew different. I, this situation, we were the cause and since I’d made this mess, I was the one who needed to step up and prove to her how much she meant to me, how much I’d changed. “Sleep well, Katy-bear?”
“I did.”
A short, two-word answer without an accompanying smile set my teeth on edge. She might have been pulling away from us for the last few weeks, but she always spoke pleasantly, always carried on the conversation. It was only the initiation of one by her—unless Liam related—that had been lacking. So, this, this was a huge, neon flashing sign. Using the topic that she didn’t shy away from, I carried on, “Liam had a great night. He woke up three times, but didn’t give us any trouble. I think Jarrod managed perfectly. After his last feed, we kept him up for a bit like you suggested, letting him do a little tummy time, before we read to him one of the nap time books. He went down almost an hour ago.”
She nodded as she twisted her fingers. One of her signs that told me how nervous she was. To my relief, Jason walked towards her, carrying a glass of her favourite fruit infused water. He kissed her temple as he handed it to her.
“Come. Have a seat at the table. Jarrod’s just finishing heating you up some breakfast.”
After taking a drink from the glass, she followed him, chewing on her lip as she walked. She took another sip and then placed her glass on the table. “We, uh, need to talk.”
“Of course, Katy-bear. Anything. Jarrod, can you turn off the stove and come over here, please?” I leaned against the counter, using it to help hold me up. At any moment, I expected my knees to give out with how serious Katy was. Every muscle in her body seemed to vibrate with tension.
“Morning, Katy.” Jarrod kissed her forehead, making me the only one not to kiss her and that bothered me. I should have done it earlier, when she first left the room, but now it would seem like it was something I was being forced to do instead of being something I was dying to. Once she gave him a wobbly smile, he came to stand beside me as Jason leaned against the far counter, facing her.
She opened her mouth to speak, but when nothing came out, she reached for her water and drank another mouthful.
The urge to pull her into my arms, to wrap her up in comfort, had me white knuckling the counter. Right now, I was probably the last person she wanted comfort from, but since I was the cause, it really fell to me to prove to her I was still her safe zone. If I didn’t, I wasn’t sure how we’d make it through this rough patch intact. I reached across the space, taking her hand in mine and giving it a little squeeze. “Take your time, Katy. We’ll always wait for you.”
When she lifted her gaze, meeting mine, the hurt and confusion I saw in her eyes, reinforced how deeply I’d messed things up. I knew I’d been acting selfishly, having lost my way when my parents died within a year of each other, leaving me adrift. My actions had smacked me upside the head when Jason had taken time away after my actions led to Katy being hurt. But I don’t think I realized until this moment, the enormity of the impact everything had on Katy. She’d always seemed so mature, taking care of everyone around her, but looking into clouded, brown eyes, I saw the seventeen-year-old girl that she was.
She swallowed twice and just as I was about to open my mouth, to thank her for all that she’d done, she stopped me. “I-I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.” Her gaze darted to Jason, who gave her a little nod, before returning to mine. “I-I think it’s time for me to go home. You’ve all learned how to look after Liam and no longer need me… to help.”
“That’s not true, Kitty-Kat, we’ll always need you… to help” I nodded, agreeing with Jarrod, but held my tongue. From the things Jason told us this morning after he woke up, I was expecting something like this. And as much as it would devastate me to lose her, I wanted her to be selfish, to put herself first for once.
“What exactly are you meaning, Katy-Bear?”
She glanced at Jason as her lower lip tucked into her mouth as she chewed on it. I gave her hand another little squeeze to remind her of my presence. I wanted answers. We all wanted answers. And while I wanted to give her all the time in the world to explain things, I also couldn’t handle all the adrenalin running through my system. Katy wasn’t the only one who was exhausted. Caring for a baby was tiring work, made all the more difficult when you had no warning, when the baby wasn’t a newborn, giving you the chance to learn with them, and when you had to learn everything from how to make formula, how to wash their items, on top of learning how to take care of them.
“I-I need time. This is all so much. It’s like I told you”—she nodded towards Jason—“last night. I’m only seventeen. I have a job that I’m committed to, fundraisers to prepare for, school to get ready for. So, while I was happy to help get Liam settled in and you comfortable with him, I need some time to get all my stuff done. Sometime without all this. ” She motioned around the room, encompassing us.
I pushed myself off the counter and with my other hand, I cupped her cheek. “You take all the time you need. I’m so thankful for all the help you’ve given us so far. We would have never made it to this stage without you.”
“You would have,” she reassured me, ever the giving and forgiving soul.
“Maybe,” I conceded, “but you made it easier and less painful.” I stroked the soft skin under her eye with my thumb, catching the tiniest bit of wetness that escaped. The presence of tears made my heart clench. Did this time away mean time away from us as in our relationship? Not that I’d blame her if it did after all I’d done. Every morning and every night, I thanked God that Jason and Jarrod—and Katy, too—were still sticking with me because I had a lot to make up for, a lot to prove. But one thing I had learned was that communication was the key, the basis of all healthy relationships. My lack of communication had been part of my earlier problems, and it was something I was working on. So, before I went off half cocked, accidentally pushing her away or hurting her again, I wanted—no, needed—to know what she meant. “Are you meaning time away from us, from our relationships?”
The tears fell a little as she stared up at me. My heart ached for her, for us. This is what I’d done to her. I pressed a kiss to her forehead and then each of her eyelids before wiping away her tears. She’d cried too many times over things I’d heartlessly done, I was bound and determined that this, her taking a stand for herself, for her mental wellbeing, would not be one of them. “You, Love, take all the time you need, okay? But I’m going to ask you one thing…” She nodded. “Don’t stay away. Don’t avoid us. Come, and spend time like you used to with no pressure about anything, no pressure about a relationship or a former one.”
“B-but?—”
I lowered my thumb, placing it over her lips. “No buts. I know that Jason, Jarrod, and I have both you, and now I’m telling you again, I—we—are following your lead. You’re the one in control. If you want a break from the relationship, whether it’s temporary or permanent, then that’s what we’ll do. But we, me and the guys, we won’t change the way we feel about you or how we treat you. I have a lot to make up to you, a lot to prove to regain your trust, and I will. I—we—will always be here, always caring for you.”
All my regret, all my self-loathing, all my love for her, I let it all out through my eyes as I continued to hold her gaze, wanting her to see, to understand, to believe despite all the times I’d betrayed her trust. It had been wrong to kiss her. Wrong because the law said so. But in matters of the heart, in the world of romance and soul mates, kissing her had been the right thing to do. The perfect thing. Going forward, when doubts would strike out at her, making her question everything about my intentions, my feelings, maybe that kiss would refresh her memory, remind her how I agonized about giving in when all it would do was to complicate her life and hurt her in the long run. Maybe it would be my saving grace.
Soft mewling sounds came over the baby monitor, pulling all our gazes as we held our breathes, waiting to see if Liam was waking or just making noises. When he settled, gratitude ran through me at the reminder. The grimace on my face had Katy shifting as if to pull away, but I tightened my grip on her hand, keeping her near me. “I lied.”
From my peripheral vision, I watched as Jason and Jarrod hulked out, wanting to jump to Katy protection. I released her cheek and used those fingers to brush a few whisps of hair away from her temple, tucking the strands behind her ear. “I said there was only one thing I wanted to ask, but it really was two.”
Jason and Jarrod deflated, relaxing their poses a little, but it was Katy’s slight rolling of her eyes and the barest hint of a smile that had me counting my actions as a win despite the seriousness of the topic. A topic I hesitated to bring up, unsure about her reaction… actually that wasn’t true. I knew what her answer would be because her heart was just that big. I just didn’t want her to feel forced or coerced in any way. That more than anything would pose the biggest stumbling block to her possible forgiveness to me.
With nothing and yet everything to lose, I decided the band aid approached would be the best. “When school starts, Liam will be in the daycare there. And I was wondering if I could put you down as one of his emergency contacts. There will be times when I can’t leave my class to get him if he needs me and Jason or Jarrod might be busy or too far away to be there immediately. But you, he loves you. He’s comfortable with you. And you’re the only person we completely trust with him.” I stepped closer, nearly brushing our chests together. “It wouldn’t be for much. Jarrod or Jason or I would still come if he needed longer than a few minutes, but until we arrived, until we could make arrangements, I wouldn’t want him to be with people he didn’t find complete comfort in. People he didn’t feel as family.”
I held my breath, wondering if I’d taken things too far with the comment about family. But she was. Always had been and always would even if it didn’t match the idea of a conventional family. Even if we never returned to being a— couple? polycule? Whatever the correct term was .
She glanced towards the primary bedroom where Liam currently napped. Again, she chewed on her poor, abused lower lip. With gentle care, I freed her lip, not wanting her to have a physical reminder of all the shit I’d put her through. Her gaze returned to me, examining me before moving on to do the same to the other who’d moved a little closer during my latest request. Whatever she saw in them must have proven to her that despite evidence to the contrary fo things we’d withheld from her, we’d never used our words to lie.
“I-I can do that. Be his other contact at the school daycare.” Under my fingers, I felt her body relax. “And I promise to come by like normal. He’s a cutie-pie and I can’t just stop spending time with him.”
“Thank you.” And this time, I didn’t hang back. I pressed a simple, chaste kiss on her lips, lingering there as I try to memorize the feel of her lips on mine, the taste of them, everything about the whole experience in case it’s the last time I get to. How I managed to keep from touching her, from kissing her for the past year I wasn’t sure—well, I did know, I just wished I hadn’t been so stupid by denying my feelings which led me down a toxic path.
When I pulled back, Jarrod was there, leaning in to kiss the corner of her mouth. “Thank you.”
And then Jason pushed his way in, dislodging me from my spot directly in front of her, but I kept a hold of her hand, not wanting to lose all contact just yet. “Remember what I said.” She nodded. “Then go sleep and relax, Baby Girl. We’ll be here, waiting, for when you’re ready.”
He pressed a swift kiss to her forehead and gathered her close. But the minute he released her, he pulled me away, giving her room to walk away and out the door. Just hopefully not out of our lives… forever.