Chapter 21 Lila
LILA
Sofia sits there for a moment, Ross on her lap, staring at me like she can’t believe a word that has just come out of my mouth.
I chew my lip, willing her to say something. Not that I thought she would take this well, exactly. I mean, I can’t say I would have a clue what to say if she came to me with a similar story, and this is more of a mess than I can even sift through myself.
“You…you got pregnant by Thom’s father?”
I nod. Hearing her say it out loud feels ridiculous, some kind of parody of real life. Matty coos in my lap, reaching up to grab the top of my shirt and yank it down so she can access her dinner. I gently pull her fingers loose, absentmindedly running a hand through her hair.
“I know how it sounds…”
“It sounds fucking crazy!” she exclaims, and she clamps her hands over Ross’s ears without thinking, to protect him from the cursing. “Did you…I mean, did you have any idea when it happened that it was like that? At all?”
“No, of course not!” I exclaim. “I would never have hooked up with him if I had known that he was…you know…”
I stare out of the window for a moment, trying to convince myself that I’m telling the truth.
Because as much as I want to believe that I would never have chosen to get myself into this situation, I’m not sure anything could have been done the night that Martin and I met to keep me from being with him.
It was like the universe had conspired to put us in the same place at the same time, to bring us together like we were always meant to be, and now…
Now, he seems to want nothing to do with me.
It’s been two days since the confrontation with Thom at my apartment, which still doesn’t feel entirely real, if I’m being honest. I keep going over and over it in my head, running through the conversation as if I’ll find something new if I look hard enough or long enough.
But there’s nothing, nothing that could bring him back, nothing that can undo the pain that’s been sitting like a lead weight inside my chest ever since.
“I see why you didn’t want to tell me in the first place,” Sofia muses, as she wraps her arms around Ross and hugs him tight. “I don’t know if I would even have been able to keep up with it all, if you had told me just like that…”
“I had no idea when I saw him at the hospital,” I confess. “I didn’t know until he did. But I thought…God, I don’t know what I thought.”
That’s not entirely true. Now that I’ve told Sofia the whole story, the pieces are starting to slot into place in my heart and in my head, about just why I miss Martin so badly.
At first, I tried to convince myself that he had done the right thing, leaving the way he did. Because the kind of mess that we’ve managed to make isn’t the sort that you can just overlook and hope for the best.
I was with his son for years, his son who’s still stalking me like I owe him something.
And not only that, but I technically gave birth to my ex’s half-siblings.
And there’s his ex to factor into the equation too, along with everything else.
Even on paper, it’s too big for me to take on, and I know it would be better to turn our arrangement back to one that’s entirely practical.
But then…but then, I’ve found myself tossing and turning at night, as restless as the twins as I remember the warmth of his arms around me as he slept.
How good it felt to have someone there at my side, someone who was willing to take care of me and stand up for me.
Someone who, without a second thought, went to the door to confront the man who had been terrorizing me for so long.
Even though it turned out to be his son, Martin still scared him off, and Thom hasn’t dared show his face around here since.
The night before it all fell apart, when I called him for help and he came to me in an instant, that’s the part I can’t shake.
I have never felt the way I did when he was there with me that evening, sitting on the couch, listening to me, his eyes filled with genuine care and protectiveness.
I’ve done so much of this life on my own, no family, nobody to turn to, and he came and showed me what it felt like to have someone there who was willing to do everything he could to support me.
And now, he’s taken all that away just as quickly as he gave it to me, and all I can feel in its place is the ache of knowing I nearly had what I’ve wanted for so long.
I’ve been going through the motions, taking care of the twins, waiting for Sofia to get back—I had resolved to tell her everything as soon as I got the chance, just glad to get it off my chest and save myself the stress of shouldering all of this alone.
But the way she’s looking at me right now, I’m not sure if I’ve exactly pulled that off.
“Look, we all make mistakes,” she assures me, as she reaches out to give my hand a squeeze. “Granted, this is…a pretty complex one, but it happens. You don’t have to beat yourself up over it. You have these two perfect little babies to show for it at least, right? That has to count for something.”
I drop a kiss on Matty’s head, and she looks up at me, her little chubby cheeks so unbearably sweet I almost can’t take it. I manage a smile.
“Yeah,” I agree. “It does.”
“And everything you’ve told me about this guy, he seems…decent,” she continues. “You said he sent you some money for the twins?”
“He dropped a few thousand into my account yesterday,” I reply. “Don’t know if it’s more hush money than anything else, though…”
“Whatever it is, take it,” she replies firmly. “You know as well as I do how hard it can be without the money you need. I don’t care where you got it from, as long as you use it to make their lives better, okay?”
“You make one hell of an aunt, Sofia,” I manage to joke, and she grins, holding Ross’s hands lightly.
“Yeah, well, someone has to stand up for them,” she shoots back playfully. “So, you’ve got the money, and you just need to deal with Thom now, right?”
“I guess so…”
“Does the building have CCTV that you know of?”
I frown. “I don’t know,” I reply. “I didn’t reach out to the landlord after the notes I found, I just figured that he wouldn’t have anything I could use.”
“Get in touch with him,” Sofia urges me. “And see if there’s anything he has that you could make use of. If you can prove that Thom has been coming by over and over again, you can take that to the cops and they won’t be able to turn you away. You already filed that report, right?”
“Yeah, but—”
“But nothing,” she tells me, kindly but firmly. “Don’t let him scare you into keeping your mouth shut, that’s what he’s counting on.”
She glances down at the twins for a moment, her face softening. “You can’t let him just go around out there with nobody standing against him,” she adds. “Think about when the twins grow up—you can’t allow people like that to just be roaming the streets, right?”
I feel a surge of certainty at the sound of those words.
She’s right, of course. The thought of Matty growing up and one day down the line encountering someone like Thom, it’s enough to make me sick.
I might not be able to fix everything, but at the very least, I can go some way to showing Thom and the men like him that they can’t just get away with doing whatever they want, no repercussions to worry about.
“You’re right,” I agree. “Thanks, Sofia. I just…”
God, I don’t know how to begin to sift through the mess of emotions running through my mind right now. Deep down, I wish Martin could be here with me—he knows how to make me feel better, even when I’m beating myself up as brutally as I am now.
But at the same time, I know that he’s too good a man to come back after everything that’s happened. The age gap was big enough as it was, but then to find out that I’m the same age as his child, and not only that, but I used to date him…
“Stop torturing yourself about this,” Sofia tells me, nudging me with her foot to pull me out of my head. “I can tell when you’re overthinking.”
I look up at her, beyond grateful that she’s willing to hear me through on everything. I felt like I was going crazy before she got back, and having someone to talk to about all of this is a relief.
“Agreed,” I reply, and I glance to the kitchen. “You want to have some dinner? Maybe order some takeout?”
“That sounds great,” she agrees. “Or maybe we could pick up something on the way back from the police station after we’ve told them everything that Thom’s been up to?”
She raises her eyebrows at me, and I know there’s no point in arguing with her. When she has an idea in her head, I have as much chance of getting it out as I do of turning day to night.
“I guess we could,” I agree. “I don’t know if they’re going to listen to me this time, but—”
“Oh, trust me, with me there, they won’t have any choice but to listen,” she replies.
I smile. Having her on my side sure does feel like the vote of confidence I needed.
She grabs the stroller and starts getting the twins ready for the trip across the city, and for a moment, I just sit there on the couch.
It strikes me, all of a sudden, that the last time I was sitting here like this was when I was with Martin.
My jaw tightens, and I do my best not to think too hard about the way his hand felt on my cheek, how his touch felt like coming home after a long day.
“You coming?” Sofia calls to me, and I snap out of it.
“Mhm!” I tell her, and as I rise to my feet, I promise myself that I will find a way to get by without him.
Even if, right now, his absence is a gaping hole in my heart that I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to mend.