Chapter 18
Eighteen
Lacey
"I told you about finding out I was pregnant, thinking the best thing for everyone was to leave and deal with it on my own.
I told you about living with Tab and waiting tables and trying to save up for an abortion.
Finding out that by the time I could afford it, it was too late.
" I swallow hard. "I told you about giving her up. "
"Lace," Cole murmurs, taking my hand.
"That was the hardest thing I've ever done and ever will do, I think—I hope.
That moment when they put her in my arms?
Cole, I'll never forget that moment as long as I live.
In that one instant, for a second or two, I…
I saw a life with her. Raising her. Being a single mom.
Hell, I even saw you and me raising her.
I just…I saw it. I felt it. That kind of love, Cole, it's…
you can't imagine. And then letting go of her?
Letting a stranger take her out of my arms, take her away, and give her to someone else to love and take care of? It nearly broke me, Cole."
"I can't imagine. I know I can't imagine how that must have felt."
"No, and I'm glad you can’t.” I exhale heavily, rub my face.
"I was a mess after that, emotionally. There was a lot at play at the time—walking away from you, deciding to have an abortion despite how I was raised and then not being able to, nine months of being pregnant and alone, giving birth alone, giving her up…then add in post-partum depression on top of all that, being away from my parents, them not knowing where I was or what I was going through…and missing you like crazy…”
There's a long pause before I continue, a deep sadness filling me as I think back on that time.
"Being with Eddie was…it wasn't always bad," I say.
"There were times when it was pure agony, but nothing will ever come even close to what I went through that first year or two after I had Maia.
" A tear slides down one cheek. "I thought about killing myself every single day, Cole.
I didn't see the point in my life. I vanished, on purpose, yes, but…no one looked for me. It—it felt like…like no one missed me. My own fucking parents didn’t even try to convince me to come home. "
"The fuck? They didn’t? You left, and they were just like, “Okay, cool?" He shakes his head. "I find that hard to believe, Lace."
I swallow hard. "I called them once I was settled with Tabs.
I…I told them I was pregnant." My stomach drops as swiftly and heavily now as it did when it happened.
"They told me it was for the best that I'd moved downstate.
Moved. Like we'd discussed it." My eyes burn.
"They were more concerned with the fact that we'd had unprotected sex outside marriage than they were about me.
They…their religious beliefs were more important to them than I was.
I'd gone against their beliefs, and apparently that one was the most important sin.
Worth essentially disowning me over, apparently.
They sent me cards at Christmas and for my birthday with fifty or a hundred bucks in them until I got married, and then even that stopped.
I didn't see them again until Eddie, as they put it, made an honest woman out of me. "
"They really said that?"
"Yes."
"They didn’t care that you were alone and pregnant? They didn't want to know anything about their own fucking granddaughter? They didn't want to know if you were okay?"
I shake my head. "No. Getting pregnant and running away broke something between us, and it has never been repaired. I suppose because I just can't forgive them, because I don't understand that mindset."
"Me either." He looks angry. "That's insane, to me.
I don't understand how someone could abandon their own kid because they made a decision they don't agree with.
Like, I've always felt that that's the entire purpose of parenting—to be there when your kid fucks up and needs help.
Instead, they fucking…they kicked you when you were down. "
"Yeah. When they told me it was for the best that I'd left, I…
" my eyes burn, and tears drip. "It hurt so bad, Cole.
I wanted them to…to help me. To tell me to come home.
That it was alright. Instead, what I got was 'you're a dirty sinner and we don't love you anymore.
' Not in so many words, but that was the message as I received it then, at least. And they've never really gone out of their way to make me feel any different.”
"I don't think there's any other way to take how they treated you," Cole says. His eyes drop. "You had suicidal thoughts?"
I nod. "Yeah." It's hard to breathe. "Every day. Multiple times a day, for a long, long time. I felt…I felt like what's the point? To me? To my life, to anything. I'd messed up my life so badly that it was like why continue? No one wants me. No one loves me. Not even my own fucking parents."
Cole's breath flutters out of him. "Fucking hell, Lacey. I'm so sorry you went through that alone."
"It was my own fault."
"No," Cole snarls. "It's fucking not. It's your parents' fault.
I'm not a dad—" he frowns, tilts his head side to side.
"Well…no. I'm a biological father, but not a dad or a parent.
But if my kid vanished, I'd move heaven and earth to find them.
If they called me and said they'd gotten pregnant or gotten someone pregnant, I'd say okay, let's figure it out together.
It's absolutely their fault that you went through that.
You were an eighteen-year-old kid, Lace.
You needed your parents' help. And the fact that you left means you knew, subconsciously, that that's how they'd react.
And that's as much of an indictment of their character as anything else. "
I roll a shoulder. "I don't disagree." I wipe at my eyes with my middle fingertips. "I see them for Christmas once a year, and that’s it, and that visit is usually awkward and painful, and I’m always glad when it's over. I couldn’t face them this year, not with the divorce.
" I laugh. "You know what my mother asked me when I called to tell them about it, and that I wasn't coming? "
Cole scoffs. "I shudder to think."
I clear my throat and do an impression of Mom's soft, nasally voice. "Well, Lacey, what I'd like to know is what you did for Eddie to want to divorce you. That man is a saint to have taken in a fallen woman like you."
Cole is so shocked by this that he simply stares at me for almost a minute. “Is she a fucking Puritan? What the fuck? Fallen woman? And what you did?"
I laugh. "Right? Talk about victim-blaming. But they’ve never believed a single bad word about Eddie, so it's not a surprise. It didn't even really hurt, to be honest. If anything, all I feel is a bitter sort of amusement."
"Fallen woman," Cole mutters with an eye roll and a shake of his head. "Fucking absurd." He looks at me, then. "The…thoughts. Do you still have them?"
I shake my head. "No, not anymore. Not for a long time."
"Did you talk to someone about it?"
I scoff. "With what money? I was flat broke. Tabs did help me sign up for Medicaid so I didn't go into debt giving birth, but…no. I just…suffered. I fought it." I whisper through gritted teeth. "I fought like hell, Cole. I…I thought about you. When I was feeling that way, I mean."
He looks at me in shock. "You did?"
I nod, sniffling. "I was still in love with you.
I told myself you were better off without me, but I let myself miss you.
Wish you were there with me. I'd pretend you were hugging me.
I…when I was with Eddie, when things were really bad and hard, when I was lonely or whatever, I'd remember how safe I felt when you hugged me.
Those big bear hugs you used to give me.
Imagining you giving me one of those big Cole hugs is how I got through the worst of everything in my life. "
His eyes are red. "Fuck, Lace. Dammit! I should've been there for you! I should've gone after you. Now that I—"
"No!” I snap. "I sacrificed for you, Cole. Maybe it was a mistake, but I still did it for you. I'd have pushed you away if you had come after me."
He nods. "Yeah, I can see that." He sighs. "So then…?"
I shrug. "I stayed with Tabs while I recuperated from the birth. Stayed with her another couple of months until I could afford an apartment. Took out loans and started taking classes at a community college. I waited tables full time and went to school full time until I got my associates, and then I transferred to Wayne State, got an apartment with a couple other girls I met at orientation—which was a hell of a stroke of good luck—and started studying for my law degree, finally…more than two years after graduating high school.”
"That always was the plan, wasn't it?"
I nod, trying to smile and only half succeeding.
"Yeah, it was." I let out a bracing breath and try again, going for bright and chipper and mostly succeeding.
"I am pretty proud of the fact that I succeeded.
My failure came later, but at the very least, I succeeded in getting the degree despite all the obstacles I faced. "
Cole squeezes my hands, lifts a hand to his lips, and kisses my knuckles.
"You should be proud of yourself, Lacey.
Super, super proud. You accomplished something that a lot of people fail at, even when they have every advantage, like parents paying for their degree and not having to work to support themselves.
" My eyes burn and my throat is hot and tight, and I can't see him for the haze of tears in my eyes.
"I'm so, so incredibly proud of you, Lacey. I'm in awe of you, truly."
I shift uncomfortably, trying and failing to speak, my mouth opening and closing several times silently before I manage to produce a weak, faint rasp of a sound. "Cole…" I clear my throat, fight down the thick, hot knot, try again. "Awe might be a tad strong."