12. Kiara
— ? —
Kiara
The coffee has gone cold in my hands. I haven’t taken a single sip.
Nadia sits across from me at the small table in my kitchen, her own cup untouched, her fingers wrapped around the ceramic.
I finished talking ten minutes ago. Maybe longer. I told her everything. She hasn’t moved since I stopped speaking. Her eyes are fixed on the table.
“Say something,” I tell her. “You’re starting to scare me with all this quiet. It’s very unlike you.”
She looks up. Her eyes are wet.
“I don’t know where to start.” She sets her cup down, pushes it away from her, pulls it back. Her hands won’t stay still. “I’ve spent five years helping you hate him, Kiara. Every time you wavered, I was the one who reminded you about the photos.”
“You were protecting me. That’s what you have always done.”
“I was reinforcing a lie.” She shakes her head, hard, like she’s trying to shake something loose.
“You couldn’t have known,” I say. “I didn’t know either.”
“But you were the one living with it.” She leans forward, her elbows on the table, her voice cracking.
“You were the one raising Kieran by yourself. Working double shifts. Skipping meals. Lying awake at night wondering how you were going to pay rent. Explaining to a three-year-old why all the other kids at daycare had daddies and he didn’t. ”
“Nadia.”
“And I just kept telling you that you were better off. That he wasn’t worth your tears.” A tear escapes down her cheek. She wipes it away angrily. “I helped you build a wall around your heart, Kiara.”
I reach across the table and grab her hand. Her fingers are cold.
“Listen to me. None of this is your fault. You believed what I believed. You saw what I saw.”
Nadia squeezes my hand so tight it hurts. Then she lets go and leans back in her chair, dragging both hands through her hair.
“I owe him an apology.”
“You don’t owe him anything.”
“Yes, I do. And so do you, in a different way.” She holds up her hand before I can argue. “I’m not saying you were wrong to run. You had every reason to believe what his mother told you. But Jensen lost five years with his son because of a lie we both accepted. That matters.”
I pull my hand back. I wrap both hands around my coffee cup, even though the cold ceramic offers no comfort.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I admit. “I built my entire life around hating him. I raised Kieran with that belief. Every decision I made for the past five years was based on it.”
“And now you find out it was all lies.”
I stare at the coffee, watching the light reflect off the surface. “I’m supposed to just forgive him? Trust him? Let him into our lives?”
“You aren’t supposed to do anything. There’s no playbook for this.”
“Then what do I do?”
Nadia is quiet for a moment. Then she leans forward again, her eyes searching my face. “What do you want to do?”
The question sits between us. I turn it over in my mind, looking at it from different angles.
“I want Kieran to know his father,” I say finally. “Whatever happened between Jensen and me, Kieran shouldn’t have to pay for it. He deserves to have his dad in his life.”
“And Jensen? Does he get a say in how this works?”
“He gets to follow my lead.” I hear the steel in my own voice. “My terms. My timeline. I’m not about to hand over control just because Jensen showed up.”
Nadia nods slowly, absorbing this. “And what about you and Jensen? The two of you, separate from Kieran?”
“There’s no me and Jensen.” I shake my head. “Not yet. Maybe not ever.”
“But you still love him.”
I don’t want to answer. I don’t want to dig into that part of myself, the part I’ve kept locked away for five years. “That isn’t relevant.”
“It’s the most relevant thing there is.” Nadia’s gaze is steady, unflinching. “I’ve watched you for half a decade now. I’ve watched you close yourself off from everyone. You haven’t let a single person get close to you since Jensen. Not one.”
“I’ve been busy. Raising a child. Working. Surviving.”
“You’ve been hiding.” She says it gently, but the truth of it cuts. “And now those walls are coming down. I can see it happening. I need to know if it’s because you have forgiven him or because you never stopped loving him.”
“Can it not be both?”
“It can. But the order matters.”
I think about Jensen in his suite, showing me the phone with the threat on it. The anguish in his voice when he told me about the years he spent staying away. The way his whole face transformed when he saw Kieran in the lobby.
I think about the night in his suite when I came apart in his hands, and how even then, even when I was supposed to hate him, I wanted him so badly I couldn’t breathe.
“I don’t know if I have forgiven him,” I say. “But I think I’m ready to try.”
“And the love?”
“The love never went away. I just buried it.”
Nadia reaches across the table and takes my hand again. This time her grip is gentle. “Then I’ll support whatever you decide. Even if it’s a mistake.”
“You think it’s a mistake?”
“I think you’re the bravest person I know. And I think you deserve to be happy.” She squeezes my hand. “Call him.”
“What?”
“You have already decided. I can see it on your face. Waiting is just going to make you second-guess yourself.” She picks up my phone from the counter and holds it out to me. “Call him. Tell him to come over. Let Kieran meet the tall man properly.”
I stare at the phone. My heart is hammering against my ribs.
“Kieran is in his room. He’ll hear everything.”
“Then Jensen better be on his best behavior.” She waggles the phone at me. “Come on. Rip off the bandage.”
I take the phone. My fingers are trembling as I pull up his number. I hit call before I lose my nerve.
He answers on the second ring.
“Kiara.” His voice is rough, like he’s been sleeping. Or crying. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything is fine. I just...” I take a breath, let it out. “Can you come over? To my apartment?”
Silence. I can hear him breathing on the other end.
“When?”
“Now. If you’re free.”
“I’m free.” He says it immediately, without hesitation. “I’m always free when it comes to you. Is Kieran there?”
“He’s in his room. Playing with his dinosaurs.”
Another pause. When he speaks again, his voice is thick. “Are you sure about this?”
“No. I’m not sure about anything.” I glance at Nadia, who gives me an encouraging nod. “But I’m doing it anyway. I want you to meet him properly. As my friend.”
“Your friend.”
“Someone who’s going to be part of our lives. If you do this right.”
“I’ll do it right.” I can hear the intensity in his voice, the desperation. “I’ll do whatever you need. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
Nadia is already standing, grabbing her bag from the back of her chair. “I should go.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Yes, I do.” She pulls me into a hug, holding on tight. “This is a moment for the three of you. You don’t need me hovering.”
“Thank you.” I press my face into her shoulder. “For everything. For the last five years.”
“You never would have given up anyway. You’re too stubborn.” She releases me, holds me at arm’s length, smiles. “Call me later. Tell me everything.”
“I will.”
She leaves. The apartment feels very quiet without her.
I spend the next fifteen minutes in a flurry of activity.
Picking up toys, wiping down counters, changing out of my stained sweatshirt into a clean blouse.
I check on Kieran twice. He’s sprawled on his bedroom floor, engaged in an elaborate battle between his plastic dinosaurs.
He doesn’t notice me watching from the doorway.
He’s too absorbed in the conflict, narrating under his breath, making explosion sounds with his mouth.
The buzzer sounds. My heart lurches into my throat. I walk to the intercom. Press the button.
“It’s me,” Jensen’s voice says.
I buzz him in. I unlock the front door. I stand in the hallway and wait, listening to his footsteps on the stairs. They’re quick. Almost running.
He appears at the top of the staircase, slightly out of breath. He’s wearing a blue button-down shirt, untucked, and jeans. His hair is messy. He’s carrying a paper bag in one hand.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi.”
He stops a few feet away, like he isn’t sure if he’s allowed to come closer. His eyes scan my face, searching for clues, trying to read what I’m thinking.
He glances past me into the apartment. “This is where you live.”
“This is where we live. Kieran and me.” I step back, holding the door open. “Come in.”
He crosses the threshold slowly, looking around. Taking in the small living room with its secondhand couch and mismatched chairs. The cramped kitchen with the chipped countertops. The dinosaur drawings taped to the refrigerator, dozens of them, a whole gallery of crayon pterodactyls and T. rexes.
“It’s small,” I say, suddenly self-conscious. “The heating is unreliable. The neighbors upstairs practice trumpet at strange intervals.”
“It’s perfect.” He says it quietly, still looking around. “It feels like a home. Like people actually live here. Like a family.”
Before I can respond, he seems to remember the bag in his hand. He holds it up.
“I brought something. For Kieran. I wasn’t sure if it was appropriate, or if you’d want me to, but I saw it and I thought of him, and I just...
” He reaches into the bag and pulls out a stuffed velociraptor.
It’s about a foot long, green and gray, with carefully stitched claws and small felt teeth.
“He told me they were his favorite. When we met in the lobby. He said velociraptors were smarter than T. rex.”
My throat tightens. “You remembered that.”
“I remember everything he said to me.” He turns the velociraptor over in his hands, examining it. “I went to four different stores trying to find one that was scientifically accurate. He seems like the kind of kid who would notice if the claws were wrong.”
“He’d notice.”
Jensen nods, still holding the velociraptor, and I can see his hands trembling slightly.
Before either of us can say anything else, Kieran comes running out of his room. He stops short when he sees Jensen, his eyes going wide, his small body freezing in the doorway.