Chapter 12
DENNY
I’m on my back when I wake up. The room feels dark, but I don’t think it’s still night. I think the sun just hasn’t worked its way out from behind the clouds yet. It’s that time of year. There are days when it feels dark all day.
I roll to my side and come face-to-face with the side sleeper. Empty? I pick my head up for a better look, and yeah, it’s empty.
My stomach sinks, which is stupid. I know where Ty is and who he’s with. Still, the fear that someone broke in during the night and stole my baby has me sitting up in bed. I rub my face, pull on a pair of sweats and socks, and head out of my bedroom.
Sure enough, there he is. Cuddled up in Tyler’s arms as Tyler stares into his perfect baby face with the most beautifully soft smile I’ve ever seen.
It’s wrong the way my heart stutters for this man. I’m reminded of the kiss we shared last week. A kiss that carried on and on and on. My body hummed with warmth and hunger. Yes, there was an undertone of sexual hunger, but everything inside me ached just to be close to him.
We ended up pressed together on the bed, mouths locked, limbs tangled as we kissed throughout the last period of the game against Dallas—which we lost—and longer, until Ty woke up fussing with a full diaper.
We went our separate ways after and haven’t spoken about it since.
Not in the last several days. I’m convinced that perhaps we’re both feeling a little guilty because we have one thing in common—Sally.
It’s horrible to consider her a wall or obstacle because she’s not here.
If she were alive, those words wouldn’t feel so heartless.
But she’s not, and I feel like shit for even thinking them.
Tyler is bed-ruffled. I love the way his usually impeccably neat hair is mussed. And those damn glasses. They just do something to me. I feel it in my goddamn balls.
He looks up, meeting my eyes. I’m not sure how I’m looking at him, but he immediately turns apologetic.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to overstep. He was fussing, and you were dead asleep. I’m sorry for getting him without permission.”
I raise my hand to stop his rambles. The night we kissed, I admitted the truth so far as Sally is concerned. But there’s a lot more weighing on me, and because it kind of pertains to this situation, maybe it’s time for a longer conversation.
Crossing the room, I pull the coffee table over and sit on it in front of Tyler. I’ve used this thing for literally everything except what it’s made for at this point.
“I appreciate you being here, Tyler. I don’t think I can express my gratitude for your help and the simple peace of mind your presence brings me. I’m not mad that you got him up. I didn’t hear him cry. Thank you.”
He sighs, bows his head.
“Look. There’s something I think I need to get off my chest and Sally’s not here for me to tell, so… I’m going to tell you, and I think it might help you to understand why I’m such a fucking mess and so shitty at being a parent.”
“You’re not shitty about being a parent.”
“But you’re not arguing that I’m a mess,” I point out.
He smiles. “I chose which of those I felt most passionate about. Your folding needs some work.” Tyler shrugs.
I laugh and bow my head. Quiet settles as I gather my thoughts. Where to start?
“I grew up in a less-than-ideal household. I won’t say that I had an awful childhood. I had a roof over my head. I had food. I had presents at Christmas. I had birthday parties and sleepovers and all the toys I could ever ask for. I had hockey, and we know that’s not a cheap sport.”
Tyler shakes his head.
“But my household was always filled with screaming and yelling and fighting. Slamming doors and a deep hatred that we all felt in our chests. My parents hated each other, and that misery often spilled over to us, even when they tried to hide it. Which I’d say they attempted about half the time.”
“The other half?” he asks.
I shake my head. “The other half, they didn’t try to hide.
We—my siblings and I—witnessed a whole lot that we shouldn’t have been exposed to as children.
Their resentment for each other spilled over to us.
It took me many years to understand that it did so because they were staying together ‘for the kids’.
For us. It was our fault that they were so miserable. ”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. I know what an unhealthy household looks like. I know what a toxic relationship looks like. I know firsthand how it affects kids when parents stay together for them. As you can imagine, it’s colored my view on…
everything. And yet, my answer to Sally telling me she was pregnant was to panic-propose because that’s what’s best for the kid. ”
Tyler sighs, shaking his head.
“A week before Ty was born, I was having a meltdown. I finally admitted out loud that I didn’t want this.
I was terrified that the childhood Ty was going to know was mine because I wasn’t marrying Sally for any of the right reasons.
He didn’t deserve that. Neither did Sally.
But I didn’t know what to do. This is what I’m supposed to do, and the pressure is from everywhere to do the right thing. ”
He’s still shaking his head, but the disappointment has turned to sympathy.
“A friend told me what he’d been through.
How his parents gave him up when he was a kid, and it was the best thing that ever happened to him.
Listening to him and my other friends, I began to understand that sometimes not being a parent was the best thing for the kid.
I’d be giving Ty a chance of never having to see or live in the situation I did.
I was digesting this and examining how I felt about the idea, but before I had a chance to talk to Sally about what I was feeling… ”
“She died,” Tyler supplies when I don’t finish.
“Yeah. I wonder if maybe I was waiting for the conversation until after Ty’s birth because everyone says it’s different when it’s your own, and I wanted to see if that was the case.
I did love him when he was placed in my hands, but…
” I shake my head and close my eyes. “The dread that filled me wasn’t because I didn’t know what I wanted to do.
It’s because I did know and I was going to earn the ire of the fucking world and maybe Sally when I told her. ”
“You didn’t get the chance to tell her, and now you’re stuck with Ty.”
I nod and rub a hand over my face. Tyler gets up, and I watch as he sets Ty in his cradle before retaking his seat in front of me. He’s closer now. Sitting on the edge so he’s eye-to-eye.
“I’d like to ask you something,” he says.
“I’m not finished.”
He nods. “I know, but… if you decide not… to be a parent, will you let me raise him instead of giving him to child services?”
A heavy sigh makes my shoulders feel heavy. I grip his wrist. “Let me finish.”
“Denny—”
“Yes,” I answer. “But please just listen to me.”
He inclines his head. “Okay.”
“I couldn’t even drive us home when I was called to pick him up.
The absolute terror of now being a parent without an out crippled me.
Which, of course, also made me sick with guilt because I should have been mourning Sally, and I am.
But I hate that I was far more terrified for my own future than I was at losing Sally.
It’s not fair to either of them, but I was so panicked about myself that I couldn’t even give Sally a proper…
” I shake my head, unable to determine what I’m looking for.
Taking a deep breath, I move beyond that.
“You came at the right time, Tyler. I was literally on the verge of metaphorically jumping off a cliff. I didn’t know what to do.
I have no one to be here with Ty. I have no help.
Yes, my friends, but two of them play hockey, too, and the other two have full-time jobs.
And he was crying. I had nothing. Everything I read online was scary as fuck, and I was beginning to feel alarmed at every goddamn sound. ”
Tyler touches my cheek. The touch is so tender that I close my eyes and let it penetrate the hailstorm of fear at how he thinks of me right now.
“I really don’t know where we’d be if you hadn’t shown up on my doorstep,” I whisper. “I kept waiting for the stupid rom-coms to come to life and something to click so I could rise to the occasion, but that wasn’t happening. I was sinking, and Ty was going to drown with me.”
He scoots forward and rests his forehead against mine. I concentrate on calming my racing heart. Saying these words out loud makes me hate myself a little more with every breath.
“So…” Tyler says. “You want to… not be a parent?”
“That’s the thing that I’m a little, uh, overwhelmed with.
I can’t imagine not being his father now.
I keep wondering if it’s the best thing to do to give him up and let him have a life with someone who isn’t a wrecking ball.
But not seeing him every day? Not seeing him grow, smile, and talk?
Not hugging him when he cries.” I shake my head against his.
“But is it selfish to keep him when I know I’m shit at this?
Is it selfish not to keep him because I’m not convinced that I want this?
Either way, I think the answer is I’m too selfish for all of it, and I’m not sure which of us is being punished with either decision I make. ”
“What I think is that you need to think about it thoroughly because I believe you’re going to do more harm than good by coming in and out of his life as he grows.”
“Then I shouldn’t be here at all,” I say, feeling the way something sharp and cold slams through my chest. “Hockey will always take me away from him. Sometimes for long periods of time.”