Chapter 13 – Lexi
thirteen
Lexi
The sound of crying wakes me up and I blink twice before I turn my head to the side, seeing the sun isn’t even up yet.
I get up on my elbow and reach over the side table.
I press the top of my phone and see that it’s just after four thirty in the morning.
Tossing the covers off me, I get out of bed and walk toward the door, turning the handle and slowly pulling it open.
The crying gets louder and louder. “I know.” I hear Ariella’s voice in a whisper as she says, “Shhhh shhh shhh.” But the crying just gets louder and louder.
I walk down the hallway toward the nursery, the little night-light illuminating the room in a soft yellow.
Ariella is in the middle of the room with Jagger in her arms, one hand under his bum, the other on the back of his head, as she bounces from side to side.
Jagger’s crying is getting a touch louder. “Hey,” I say, stepping into the room.
“I’m so sorry we woke you,” Ariella apologizes to me as I step into the room and Jagger rubs his face in the middle of her chest. “He just won’t get comfy.”
“Do you want me to try?” I ask her and hold out my hands to him. “Do you want to come to see Auntie Lexi?” I ask him softly as Jaxon comes into the room.
He’s wearing black boxers and nothing else, a baby bottle in his hand as he rubs sleep out of his eye. “I got a bottle.” He holds it up and then sees me there. He looks at me with one eye closed. “What are you doing here?”
“I heard the crying and thought I would help,” I reply, grabbing Jagger from them and kissing the side of his head. “What’s all this fuss, little man?” I hold out my hand for the bottle and Jaxon gives it to me. “You two go back to sleep and I’ll come and get you if I need you guys.”
Ariella looks at me and then at Jaxon, who reaches forward, grabs her hand, and pulls her out of the room. “You are a godsend,” Jaxon mumbles to me.
“You come and get me if he—” She stops talking because he’s got her out of the room and the door slams shut behind them.
“Listen, little man,” I soothe, putting him on his side as he looks up at me, “don’t make us go through sleep training again.
” He whimpers in my arms. “Remember that?” I ask him, walking toward the rocking chair in the corner of the room.
“You cried for a full hour,” I remind him as I tease his mouth with the bottle.
“Your mother cried the whole time and I thought your father would go bald.” He takes the bottle and starts drinking.
“I know you’re in pain, little man.” I move the rocking chair with my foot back and forth.
“Teething pain can be the worst.” I put my head back and close my eyes, listening to him gulp down his bottle as if he didn’t have a bottle at midnight when he woke up for the second time.
I open my eyes and look down at him, seeing his eyelids close halfway, his chubby fist closed and lying on my chest. I wait for him to finish the bottle, but he falls asleep before the nipple slips out of his mouth.
I put the bottle on the side table before placing his chest on mine, his head resting on my shoulder, as I gently tap his back.
“All I need is a burp from you and we can both go to sleep.” I rub his back in a circle before going back to tapping it.
It takes him a couple of minutes, between tapping and rubbing, for him to give me a burp before I’m able to stand up and walk him back over to the crib.
“Now I’m going to place you down, and you are going to either wake and then drift off or you will just still be sleeping,” I say, placing him gently on his back, trying not to wake him.
I slowly disengage from him, stopping mid-movement when he jerks his arms. When my arms are fully out from under him, I look in the crib, seeing him on his back with his hands by the side of his head.
“Sleep tight, angel,” I tell him and turn to walk over and turn off the night-light, before turning on the sound machine and tiptoeing out of the room and closing the door halfway behind me.
Making my way back to my bedroom and sliding into the bed, I look out of the window at the darkness.
It’s been three months since I left Trent.
Three months of being free from him, but at the same time still feeling the pull to him.
Guilty for leaving him and then unsure that I did the right thing.
He didn’t think I had really left him, but then he came home and saw I was gone.
He blew up my phone, but at that point I was in New York at my parents’ house. I ignored his calls until I finally caved and answered him. “Lexi,” he said with so much anger in his voice, it felt like his whole body was shaking, “what the fuck is going on?”
“I think it’s pretty much self-explanatory, don’t you think?” I sat in the middle of my bed. My legs pulled to my chest, my arms wrapped around them. “I left you, Trent.”
“I want you to get your ass back here right now!” he screamed. “I’m not kidding with you, Lexi. You let those people come into my house!” he roared.
“Those people?” I asked him, knowing he probably checked the Ring cam as soon as I called him.
A Ring cam that I wasn’t given the code to because it didn’t matter to me.
I shouldn’t bother myself with it. His words, of course, and probably because I would be able to see when he would actually get home, or maybe he was sneaking out more times than I knew about. “You mean my parents.”
“Lexi,” he hissed, “get your ass back home now.”
“Why?” I asked him the question instead of giving in to his demands like I usually did.
“Excuse me?” His tone had gone down.
“Why do you want me to come back?” I repeated the question.
“Be careful,” he threatened. I don’t know if it was because I was past the point of being exhausted or I was just happy to be rid of him, but I let out a laugh. “This isn’t funny, Lexi.”
“It is, actually,” I replied. “It’s funny that it took me this long, don’t you think?” I didn’t wait for him to answer. “I should have left you the first time I found out you cheated on me.”
“Is this what this is all about,” he huffed out, “because you found out I spent the night with Tatum?” I wish it would have hurt hearing that, but deep down I knew he never stopped being unfaithful. “I ended things with her this morning. I want to focus on us.”
“You want to focus on us?” I said, hoping he could hear the venom in my voice. “You’re a little too late for that, don’t you think?”
“It’s not too late. We can do the couples counseling you wanted to do. Then we can finally try for a baby. It’s about time, don’t you think? It’s been ten years.”
“I’m not going to couples counseling with you.” The bitter taste hung in my mouth. “And I am definitely never having a child with you.” I sighed deeply. “I’ll have my lawyer contact you in the next couple of days.”
“Don’t do this, Lexi,” he said, his voice back to being tight. “I would hate for you to do something and then regret it. Don’t you think this has gone on long enough?”
“I do,” I agreed with him, “way too long. Goodbye, Trent.” I hung up the phone and blocked his number.
A lone tear escapes from the side of my eye and rolls onto the pillow.
The confusion about leaving him always hits me at night when the quietness comes.
He’s made me feel so reliant on him and his thoughts that I second-guess myself.
It’s at these times I have to think about what my therapist has said from the beginning.
You are rebuilding your life starting at step one.
Step one is me not second-guessing myself because there are no wrong ways to live my life.
Her words repeat in my head as I close my eyes and drift off to sleep.
The sun hits me smack in the face when I turn over on my other side, and I groan before holding my hand up to stop it from blinding me.
I turn over again and snuggle back into the covers for a full second before I throw them off me and get out of bed.
The bedside table clock shows it’s almost ten in the morning.
I stretch my arms over my head before making my way over to the bathroom, starting the shower before brushing my teeth.
I take a shower and then brush out my hair before walking to my closet and grabbing a pair of sage-green linen pants with an elastic waist and a white sleeveless button-down shirt that has a scoop neckline, something Trent would never approve of.
I tuck the front of the shirt in before I walk over and make the bed and open my door.
I look over at the nursery and see the door is open, and so are the shades, before walking down the steps to the kitchen. I walk in, finding Ariella sitting on one of the stools at the island with the highchair beside her.
“Good morning,” I say cheerfully, walking in and starting my coffee before going over to the highchair.
Jagger has his hands up and is moving them excitedly in a circle. “Good morning, sweet boy.” I bend to kiss his blondish-brown hair. “How did we sleep?” I look over at Ariella, who picks up her cup of coffee and brings it to her mouth.
“After you put him down, he just woke up,” she tells me and I smile. “I call that a good stretch, don’t you?”
“He wore himself out.” I walk back to the coffee machine and grab my cup while I walk over to the fridge to grab the milk. Not almond milk for me, straight-up cow’s milk. “Do you want me to make you something for breakfast?” I ask her as I pour the milk into the cup.
“You have to stop acting like you are my personal chef,” she hisses. “You don’t have to always cook for me.”
I snort as I grab my cup of coffee and take a sip. “How about I make some sausage and eggs on English muffins?”
“I want to say no, but I have literally no energy to get up and cook.”