28. Six hours
Chapter 28
Six hours
Darcy || 2 weeks old, February
S ix hours. That’s how long Tatum has been gone, I’ve called everyone and no one has seen him. I called the gym, he never checked in. After calling his parents, the arena, and every hospital within a fifty mile radius, I’ve come to the conclusion that he’s given up on us.
“Come on, Tatum. Answer the fucking phone.” It rings and rings again, for probably the twentieth time before going to voicemail. He turned his find my friends off and he won’t answer any of our calls or texts.
“D? Where are you?” Kodi comes around the corner of our living room, finding me in a pile of tissues, Hayden sleeping soundly in his baby tot beside me. I see her and my dam breaks, sobs wracking my body uncontrollably.
“Why…” I can’t catch my breath, gulping for air, “why would he do this to me? Why.” Another gulp for air, “wouldn’t he just talk to me?”
Kodi’s arms wrap around me and she speaks quietly, yet firmly, “Breathe for me, D.”
“In.” One. Two. Three. “Out.” One. Two. Three. We repeat the cycle two more times before I feel ready enough to have a conversation.
“I don’t know what he’s thinking but I’m sure he will be back, okay? He never checked in at the gym?” She asks.
“Nope. Hasn’t called anyone and isn’t answering either. Dom said he spoke to him briefly and he sounded jumpy, but didn’t give him any information to lead him to believe he was going to bolt.”
“I can’t get a hold of Harls but Sin is heading over with an overnight bag.” It’s then that I notice she dropped one in the living room as well. “We will stay as long as you need us.”
“What about Bella?” I ask, knowing that she has a child to take care of too.
“Stu is going to help while Mav is at practice and then she will come stay with us Friday if that’s okay.”
“Yeah, I could use some Bella snuggles for sure.”
“I’m here!” Sin gasps for air as she enters the condo, “Sorry it took so long. What can I do? Oh my god, this place is disgusting. I’m cleaning.” While I should be offended at her bluntness, it doesn’t surprise me and she’s not wrong, in the six hours that Tatum has been gone, it looks like a tornado came through here.
“Thank you guys,” I say through sniffles, looking at my son and hoping for his sake that his Dad gets his shit together soon.
“When does Hayden need to eat next?” Kodi’s lilting voice breaks through my brain fog.
“Probably an hour or so.”
“When did you shower last?”
“The other night, it’s been rough. We’ve been trying our best, he was doing his best.” I say again as another sob escapes me.
“Why don’t you go shower and take a nap? You need it and he will be okay with me. You have bottles in the fridge right? I know how to heat them.”
“That would be really great actually thank you. He’s been gassy though so he needs to be fed at that weird angle and just keep him upright for a bit.”
“We’ve got you both Darcy. Go, love you.”
“Love you,” Sin says from behind the couch where she’s collecting tissues, chocolate wrappers, and diapers.
“Love you both.”
I head to our room, turning on the shower at the highest temperature. Once the bathroom is filled with steam, I strip and step under the water, just letting it run over my body as the adrenaline from the past few hours wears off and the exhaustion kicks in. Throughout my shower, salty tears stream down my face, my body shaking with each sob that leaves my throat. When I’ve cried all the tears I have left, I step out of the shower, grab one of Tatum’s shirts, and pull the covers of our bed up to my neck. Before I let my eyes close, I pull my phone out and send one final message to him. If he doesn’t answer this one then I’m going to give up.
Me
Tatum, please. Please don’t do this to us. We need you, you didn’t even tell me you were leaving. You left me, our son without a word. Why? Why did you do this? We love you and want you to come home.
* * *
Now I sit here with his parents and sisters, a week later, wondering what went so horribly wrong that he would just disappear on us like this. My three-week-old son and I that he claimed to want and love.
“This doesn’t make sense. He’s never been one to just run off like this,” Rose sighs. Tessa and Tinsley sit in the corner of the couch with Hayden between them since they couldn’t make up their minds about who should get to hold him first.
“All he said was that he was headed to the gym. I figured he needed to get away for a bit, we had a few rough nights with Hayden.” I shrug, my legs tucked beneath me, one of our fuzzy blankets covering my body and providing me some semblance of comfort. Not the kind that I wish I was experiencing and comes in the form of Tatum’s arms wrapped tightly around me.
“There’s not anywhere that you can think of that he might have run off to?” Walter asks for the third time since they arrived two hours ago.
“I don’t think so.”
“No place of peace or comfort that he likes to escape to?” He expands on his previous question. An epiphany punches me in the face right then of the one place that he always says he goes to when he needs to think. A place that we’ve escaped to multiple times over the last nine and half months when life got to be too overwhelming or pregnancy got to be too hard.
“Oh my god. The beach house!” I scream, scaring Hayden into tears. Tinsley quickly scoops him up, softly hushing him back to sleep before leaning back and letting him sleep on her chest. Tessa side eyes her, probably assuming that it’s going to be a while before she gets some nephew snugs.
Rose and Walter are up on their feet as soon as the words leave my mouth, slipping on their shoes and quickly telling the twins, “Behave, help Darcy, and share your nephew's snuggles or Darcy has the right to step in.” In an instant they are rushing out of the condo.
I silently will Tatum to be at the bungalow and pray his parents will be able to knock some sense into him. I know that if he does come back, he has a lot of making up to do. I refuse to just go back to normal and act like he didn’t crack my heart in two when he walked out on me and his son.