Chapter 23 – Mabel
Chapter Twenty-Three
MABEL
“Shit. Shit. Shit. Fuck, shitballs. Goddamnit.” I’m pacing a hole into the floor of my bedroom, doing my best impression of Elle, and spiraling because what the fuck did I let happen yesterday?! This was a disaster! A complete and utter mess that I’m never going to recover from.
I haven’t had a breakdown like that in YEARS. Not since Henry was a baby. I’d been able to get over myself because Paul had needed me. Sure, I still get sad but never ever like that. No, my family needed me for one thing or another and my family always came first.
I’d made a promise to myself to be better.
After coming home all those years ago, I barely let myself get loose around others.
A year or so back, Paul and I went out and I thought I saw him and it felt like I was that silly girl all over again.
Paul, of course, instantly knew something was wrong and offered to beat the snot out of a random, to him, stranger.
It turned out to not be who I thought it was but my whole world was tilted on its axis going back to that time, Paul took me back to his house and made me spill everything.
He’s still the only one in the family who knows.
The only one who knows how excited I was, how ready I was for this new chapter of my life.
How I was completely okay with doing it by myself and how much it broke me when I lost the baby.
He just listened, and didn’t try to offer any hollow platitudes to attempt to calm me down.
I told him that I felt like I made terrible decisions when I let my ‘Maybe’ persona come out and I blamed those poor decisions—not limited to but including all my fights with Dad—her.
I said I hated myself more often than not because I knew Maybe was me, and trying to put blame on a stupid nickname that started in high school was just as dumb as I was.
“Maybe she’ll sleep with him, Maybe she’ll sneak out tonight, Maybe she’ll be able to convince that guy to get us some beers.”
Maybe turned into a dare that I always took. I refused to play the part of the perfect eldest daughter of the family. No, I fell into the much more cliche stereotype of the wild oldest daughter from the town’s most well known family.
God, it was embarrassing. I was embarrassing.
Dad certainly thought so, “Mabel girl. You’re better than that.
” His favorite phrase when I disappointed him, again and again.
Until I finally broke and told him I’d never been better than any of it, and he could take all his disappointment and his assumptions that just because I was a Warren I was somehow better than everyone else in this fucking town and shove it all where the sun don’t shine.
I don’t remember much else from that fight.
More words were said, some were yelled, but I do remember packing a bag and leaving the Farm for roughly eighteen months.
Even though I’ve lived in Utah my whole life, I’d never planned to be pregnant at such a young age.
I wasn’t dumb, I was always careful…well, mostly careful.
What I wasn’t super careful about was collecting phone numbers or remembering the names of my conquests.
I ended up with no way to contact my future baby daddy and I was, quite honestly, fine with it.
I made a doctor’s appointment, gave myself a pep talk in the bathroom mirror and called my mom to tell her I wanted to come home.
No, I didn’t share the sudden change of heart. I wanted to go to my first appointment, get a picture of the ultrasound and surprise my parents with the fact that they were going to be getting a grandchild.
Yeah, that didn’t fucking happen.
No heartbeat.
D&C scheduled but in the end, not needed. I lost my baby that night. Thankfully, I was still living off the farm and didn’t have to open myself up to questions I wasn’t prepared to answer. All my bravado and urge to return to my family became twisted and bitter but it was time to go home.
I locked all my thoughts and feelings, my excitement, for becoming a mom away in a box. Until that night with Paul where I spilled everything.
He listened without any judgement. Then he made me promise him that I would come to him if I ever started to feel like I was going down into that dark hole again.
He promised me he would drop whatever he was doing and make sure I was okay, that he’d do whatever he could in his power to keep me out of that dark place.
I’ve been good, I haven’t needed to reach out to him.
Outside of my small slip up last month that ended up being a really good day with Anika and Henry.
He was out of town, so he couldn’t physically be there for me but he still let me invade his home and sent me texts following up to make sure I was okay.
Paul has always been there for me. It doesn’t matter to him that all of this happened almost ten years ago.
He’s never told me that it’s about time I get over my damage and move on.
He’s just been there for me, and even though he won’t let me be there for him fully when it comes to everything going on between him and Anika, how much I want to be.
It’s still a betrayal to have any type of feelings toward Jude outside of the contempt that Paul holds for him.
Paul was almost as broken as me that day I held him after Lola announced his promotion.
I need to remember that, no matter how safe I felt in Jude’s arms yesterday.
It doesn’t matter that he held me and took care of me and stayed in my bed with me just because I asked.
No questioning, no trying to dive deeper into my reactions.
I need to forget how fun it’s been to have him around while I’m working, how he took all my pranks and teasing and attempts to avoid him with barely a huff of annoyance.
I can’t continue to let my body react with a warmth in my stomach every time he calls me “Trouble.”
I can’t do any of it.
No matter how much I want to.