43 - Haley
43
Haley
Harper’s comments made me feel somewhat better.
For about twelve hours.
That was long enough to get some real sleep, but I woke up the next morning feeling shitty all over again. Even making breakfast for Bran, which normally put me in a great mood, only reminded me of the rift I’d caused with his father.
A rift that might permanently be damaged.
Sara burst into my apartment while I was helping Bran get ready for Kindergarten. She waddled over to us and shouted, “You should have woken me up last night!”
“You need your sleep. And Harper did a good job of calming me down,” I replied. “He’s going to be a good father. He wanted me to tell you that, by the way.”
“Don’t change the subject. What happened last night…” She glanced at Bran. “It’s the kind of thing you tell your sister immediately . Without delay.”
“Like being admitted to the hospital?” I asked sweetly.
“Yes! Exactly like—” She cut off and glared at me. “Ugh. You got me.”
“I’m enjoying a large amount of pleasure at turning the tables on you,” I said.
“What are you talking about?” Bran asked.
“Adult things,” I replied.
“I’m almost an adult,” he announced. “I’ll be six in September.” He held up both fists, concentrated for a moment, then raised six fingers.
“You sure are, Bran Bran,” Sara said.
I had a busy day at work, which helped distract me from everything that had happened last night. But I still compulsively checked my phone every five minutes to see if Lucas had texted.
Spoiler alert: he hadn’t.
The other guys did, though.
Jordan : Hey, I’m picking up an extra shift at the hospital tonight, so I’ve got to cancel Bran’s private practice today. But the good news is that he’s picked up the basics quickly, and is all caught up with the other kids. I think the regular practices should be all he needs going forward! Tell him I’ll see him at practice tomorrow.
Me : No worries! Try not to kill anyone at work tonight.
Me : Shit, that joke was way too dark. I’d like to take that back.
Jordan : LOL, you should hear the jokes me and the nurses tell. Sometimes dark humor is the only way to get through a bad day.
Shay’s text came just ten minutes after that.
Shay : Quick question for you. Can we cancel the two lunch showings you scheduled this week? We just had a new case dropped in our laps and I’m going to be working through lunch for the foreseeable future.
Me : Yeah, no sweat. I’ll let the sellers’ agents know. Want me to reschedule them for next week, or move them to the evening?
Shay : Let’s put a pin in it for now. I’ll let you know when my schedule is a little more clear. Thanks for being flexible.
By themselves, the messages from Shay and Jordan weren’t suspicious. They could have been totally normal in any other context. But getting them back-to-back, a day after my blowup with Lucas? It couldn’t be more clear what was happening.
That night, Harper babysat Bran while Sara and I got properly white-girl-wasted.
On Wednesday, I took Bran to baseball practice and sat in the bleachers like I always did. Jordan wasn’t outright rude to me, but he wasn’t as friendly as he usually was. He waved, but then pointedly ignored me for the rest of practice.
At the next practice on Friday, I dropped Bran off and drove to a coffee shop instead.
He and Shay were on Lucas’s side. Because of course they were. The three of them were best friends, and I was a woman who had basically pulled the pin on a grenade before throwing it into their friendship. Bros before hoes.
And Lucas still hadn’t texted me.
I spent the weekend debating whether or not to reach out to him. Harper was right, I needed to give him time to process things. Logically, I knew that was true. But the longer it went on, the more I began to believe he had already processed everything, and this was the way things were going to be, now.
It was over.
It felt like I had lost so much. This wasn’t like a regular breakup, where I had to cut myself off from a single guy. I was also losing my relationship with Jordan and Shay. Three times the pain, three times the heartbreak.
And worse than that, Bran was losing three male figures in his life. He still got to see Jordan at practice, but when I tucked him in that night, he mentioned Lucas.
“When are we going to play mini-golf again?” Bran asked.
I made myself smile. Pretending everything was fine was a huge part of being a mother, shielding your child from all sorts of things. “I don’t know.”
“He promised we would play again,” Bran insisted. “Can you text him?”
“I will.”
“Do it now,” he pushed. “I want to see.”
I clenched my jaw. “He’s probably in bed by now. I’ll ask him tomorrow. He’s been very busy at work.”
It broke my heart to make excuses. The last thing I wanted was for Bran to feel like he had been abandoned. That was the whole reason I hadn’t told him who his father was in the first place!
I thought that I was enough for him, but now it was clear he needed more than just me in his life.
When I crawled in bed each evening, I thought about that night at Lucas’s apartment. How much fun we’d had… and then telling him the truth about Bran. The way he’d paced around, squeezing his hair in his fists. Freaking out. It reminded me of the old Lucas, the one I’d known in high school. The one that I was certain wasn’t father material.
Lost in all of this was the confession he had made. He’d moved back to Vancouver for me . He wanted to try to start a real relationship… not just with me, but with Bran. He was willing to give it a try, even if he thought he wouldn’t be a good stepfather.
Lucas had changed so much from the teenager I had fallen in love with. He was a real man in every definition of the word. His confession was everything I had wanted to hear.
And then it was gone, in the blink of an eye.
Deep down, I knew I had made the right decision to tell him. He deserved to know, especially before he spent any more time with the boy he didn’t know was his son. If I had put it off longer, the resulting explosion would have been even worse.
If Lucas couldn’t forgive me, then that’s just how it had to be.
After another week had passed, I was even more certain. I didn’t even want to text Lucas anymore. He’d made his choice clear.
I told myself I didn’t need him. I didn’t need Jordan or Shay, either. The weird little fling I’d had with the three of them was fun while it lasted, but it was time for me to move on.
I’d raised Bran alone for this long. I could keep doing it.
And if that meant I cried myself to sleep every night, then that was the price I had to pay.