by Claire Adams
Everything still seemed so stressed, almost forced from her, and I couldn’t figure out why. By now, I would have figured she would be back in the flow of things with Kayla at least. She was very distant from Kayla and was doing things in a way that was “expected,” and not just relaxed and with the flow of the moment. She also seemed to forget that Kayla was old enough to do things like wipe her own nose and tie her own shoes, which had led to an embarrassing moment for Kayla at the zoo in front of the monkey cages. I was no longer going to sit by and just let it continue like that, not if this was supposed to decide whether I let Christina back in our lives or not. She had to either let me know what was going on, or things needed to change, because at that moment, we were at a complete standstill.
Christina sat down on the couch and leaned back, closing her eyes, which gave me the message that she wasn’t going to be putting Kayla to bed that night. I shook my head and headed upstairs, picking up one of Kayla’s lost duck feet and laughing. When I got inside her room, she was already in the bed with the covers pulled up to her chin. She reached up as I leaned over and wrapped her arms around my neck, kissing me on the cheek.
“I had a really good time, Daddy; thank you,” she said sweetly.
“You are welcome, my sweet,” I replied. “Get some sleep, okay? I’ll see you bright and early for some yummy breakfast.”
“Okay.” She yawned, turning over and clutching her baseball doll.
I left the room and turned out the light, pulling her door almost all the way shut. I went back downstairs and gently sat down on the couch next to Christina, folding my hands in front of me. She opened her eyes and looked over at me with a smile. I couldn’t let this go on anymore without saying something about it.
“Christina,” I said, turning slightly toward her. “I can’t help but notice, and I’ve noticed this since the ball game, that things seem really strained. You are acting like you are being forced to interact with Kayla. What is going on? I feel like there is something that you aren’t telling me. If you are trying to make this work, then you need to be totally upfront and honest with me.”
“I don’t know.” She sighed.
She sat there for several minutes, her eyes moving back and forth as she thought about her words. Slowly, she pulled her hand over to my knee and squeezed my leg, turning her head toward me as it rested on the back of the couch. Her eyes changed, and it was an all-too-familiar look. She seemed to forget that I was married to her for a long time and knew what the sultry stare meant. Immediately, I felt uncomfortable, almost like I was doing something wrong.
“I miss you,” she whispered. “I miss your strong muscles, your hot naked body, and all the wild things you used to do to me in bed. It’s been a long time, Ryan, and I think I might just be a little pent up.”
She started to move her hand farther up my leg, and I grabbed it, staring her in the face. There wasn’t a single bone in my body that was even considering sleeping with Christina. I hadn’t even reached the point where I was the least bit attracted to her. Beyond the way she mothered, or didn’t mother, Kayla, there was still the issue that she was fucking my best friend behind my back for God knows how long. The last thing on my mind was screwing my ex-wife, no matter how long it had been since I got any.
“I know that in your mind this is a package deal,” I said, laying her hand back in her lap and pulling away. “For me though, it’s a bit different than that. This little plea for our family is twofold for me. I am not, in any way, focused on you and me right now. Right now, I am focused on whether or not you can be a mother to our daughter, something that you haven’t shown you are really interested in doing. Motherhood doesn’t give participation trophies, Christina. You have to actually put something into it. If, and that is a big if, you can show me that you can be a loving and adequate mother to Kayla again, then we can start discussing the possibility of the two of us rekindling anything that may have been there before. If you haven’t forgotten, you didn’t just leave Kayla, you were fucking my best friend for months and then left us both for him.”
Her eyes lightened again, and a pout moved across her lips like a child that had been scorned. I knew this story all too well and had dealt with it in our marriage over and over again. Only then, I gave into it. Anytime that Christina was coming under the knife for anything she may have done wrong, she tried to use her sexual prowess to get herself out of it. The difference now was the fact that I wasn’t interested in sleeping with her. Before, I was in love, or at least I thought I was, and didn’t want to give up a chance to have hot sex with my then-wife.
“Right,” she said, picking up her head. “I forgot that you’ve spent the last who knows how long screwing that dumb, frumpy interior designer, Alissa. I think it’s hilarious that you go from this to a rebound like her. Talk about dating down after a divorce. What was wrong? You couldn’t find anyone outside of your own family to date, so you decided that dating your own sister was a good idea? You want to sit there and pass judgment on me, but I wasn’t playing house with my father’s wife’s daughter. I can see that when I left, I took all the class right out the door with me. I mean, God, does she even get jobs with the kind of skills I am staring at in this house? Taupe and earth tones? Gross.”
She stood up and stomped over to her bag, pulling it over her shoulder and searching for her keys. Everything in me wanted to tell her to get the hell out and never come back, but I knew that my little girl was just above our heads, snugly tucked into her covers, happy from a day spent with her mother and father. I took in a deep breath and unclenched my teeth, realizing that I had just probably embarrassed Christina a bit, and she was lashing out because of that. Still, I didn’t want to look at her face anymore that night.
“You are too much.” I laughed. “You don’t get your way for one night, and all of a sudden, you turn into this vicious bitch that has the audacity to put me down for my choices after you walked out on your baby girl. You, the woman who ran away with her husband’s best friend and then came crawling back here, begging for forgiveness, have the balls to sit there and try to make me feel bad for moving on with my life and having a relationship with someone that actually gave a damn about Kayla and me. I want you to leave for the night. I’m sick of looking at your face. I’ll call you tomorrow, and maybe we can continue what we have been doing. I need some time to think.”
She looked up at me in shock that I actually had the guts to tell her to get out. When we were married, she pretty much ruled the roost, and she wasn’t used to me being so assertive. I had grown a lot since she left, and whether she wanted to admit it or not, I was not the same man that she was married to before. She could thank herself for that. I was no longer going to sit by and let her push me around and say things that were meant to be hurtful. This was my decision, not hers, and she needed to start understanding she was no longer in control.
She dropped her hands down to her sides and looked at the floor, taking in a deep breath and closing her eyes. She stood there for several moments, thinking about what had just happened. That was the first time she had come at me like that since she had arrived, and it was obvious there was a lot of bad blood between us. She slowly raised her head and stared at me, her face now thoughtful and saddened.
“Ryan, I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m not used to you turning me down, and it hurt my ego. I flew off the handle, and I shouldn’t have done that. I will admit that I am jealous of the relationship that you, Alissa, and Kayla have built up since I have been gone. But I am back now, and I am trying for my family, something I want back more than anything because I love both of you so very much.”
“You need to try harder,” I said calmly. “If what you say is true, then you really need to try harder.”
“I understand,” she said meekly.
“Go back to the hotel, get a good night’s sleep, and I’ll call you in the morning,” I replied with exhaustion. “Nothing is going to get solved tonight. We are both exhausted and angry.”
She nodded and walked out of the house, quietly shutting the door behind her. Nothing about what she said made me feel bad, but it definitely calmed me down enough to think straight. This was a way more difficult situation than I originally had realized.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Alissa
My feet were propped up on the coffee table, and I was holding my glass of wine to my lips, not actually drinking it at all. My eyes were fixed somewhere in the distance, but my mind was raging all over the place. I couldn’t get Ryan and Kayla off my mind. Ever since I had that conversation with my mother, I kept thinking that I had made a huge mistake not fighting for the two of them.
Everything was so hazy in my mind, but I knew for certain that I was still madly in love with Ryan. Even just the thought of Christina being in that house with them made me sick to my stomach, and the thought of Kayla was breaking my heart. That little girl deserved so much better than what she was being offered. I cared so much for her, just as I always imagined I would for my own children. She deserved to have a mother that loved her, cared about her, and never abandoned her. I knew that if I didn’t fight for them, I would be doing the same thing that Christina did: walking away from them and leaving them on their own. Just thinking about Kayla thinking I had abandoned her brought tears to my eyes, and I could barely handle the emotion.
I sat on the couch, thinking about them for quite a while, trying to understand why Ryan would even consider letting Christina back in their lives. I had to understand that Christina was, whether I liked it or not, Kayla’s mother, and that meant that she had the right to be there for her daughter and care for her how she saw fit. That being said, there was no reason why I couldn’t provide Kayla with love, support, and caring right alongside her. It was obvious from her actions before that she didn’t love Ryan, so there was no reason that this couldn’t be a normal, divorced family situation. I knew that kicking Christina completely out of their lives would be hurtful to Kayla, but it didn’t have to be that way. She could have both.
Christina was only after Ryan because he could provide stability and a good life, but she didn’t care about him more now than she did the day she left him. I couldn’t just let him make that mistake and let her back into his life like that. It was one thing to foster a relationship between Kayla and her mother, but it was completely different to go all in and have another terrible relationship between Ryan and Christina. I just couldn’t let that happen. I loved him too much. I had spent my life hoping to find someone that I cared about as much as I did for Ryan, and now that I was losing it, I was frantic to not let that happen.
I stood up from the couch with a burst of energy that came out of nowhere. I set the wine on the table and pulled my shoes on, deciding that it was now or never. I grabbed my purse and keys and walked out of my house, locking the door behind me and heading straight for my car. I put the keys in the ignition and drove out of my neighborhood, knowing that if I slowed down for even a second, I ran the risk of losing the confidence I had surging through me at that moment. I didn’t want to go one more night without letting Ryan know just how I felt about him. Hopefully, Kayla would be in bed, because I wanted to be honest with him without hurting her in any way.
As I drove, I thought about all the things that my mother and sister had told me and realized now that they were right. I wasn’t the homewrecker here. Christina was. If I really loved Ryan, I needed to not give up until it was blatantly obvious that I had lost. I pulled into the neighborhood and around the corner, parallel parking in front of their house. The downstairs lights were on, but the top floor was dark, making me assume that Kayla was fast asleep already. I left my purse in the car and walked quickly up the walk, knocking hard on the door and standing back, feeling my heart beating out of my chest.
I could hear footsteps walking toward the door, and I took a step backward, not wanting to be seen through the peephole. As the door opened, I saw Ryan’s face, and I had to push down the urge to jump into his arms and feel his warm embrace. He tilted his head and smiled, a welcoming gaze staring out at me.
“Alissa,” he said with surprise. “What are you doing here?”
I stood there for a moment, unable to speak, running through all the speeches I had played out in my head when I was on the way over here. For some reason, all the gumption and passion were stuck in my chest, and I couldn’t even get a word out. I wanted so badly to tell him how I felt, to make him understand that he was making a mistake by letting Christina back into his life as anything more than Kayla’s mother. I took in a deep breath and put up my finger, letting my heart start to slow down. I needed to calm down, to gather myself so that I didn’t just start talking in riddles like the day outside of his office. I needed to be clear and concise in my feelings so that he knew exactly what was on my mind and I had no regrets if this didn’t turn out like I wanted it to.
“May I come in?” I looked behind him and saw Christina, who seemed more than displeased that I was there.
“Of course,” he said, stepping back and watching me as I walked past.
I glanced up at her and took another deep breath, trying to ignore the fact that she was now standing, her arms crossed in front of her, with no intention of leaving us to talk in private. I was glad she was there, but I was also glad that it was a surprise, because had I known, I might not have come over. She needed to hear what I had to say because she needed to understand that she was the person here who was breaking up something amazing. She needed to know I wasn’t trying to take her place as Kayla’s mother, but I did have every intention of making sure she did not get back together with Ryan.
“I didn’t know you were coming by,” he said, glancing up at Christina. “I would have been alone if I had known. We were just discussing the outings for next week before she went back to the hotel.”
“I don’t care about her,” I said, flipping my wrist as I turned to him. “I have nothing to hide, and she can hear every word I have to say to you. None of it should be a surprise to her, anyway. That being said, where is Kayla?”
“Oh, she is at my father’s for a few days,” he said with a smile. “She was really missing some Grandma and Grandpa time.”
“Oh, good,” I said, letting out a deep breath. “Then I can speak freely.”
“Of course,” he said, smiling. “What is going on? Is everyone okay?”
“Everyone but me,” I said, looking up at him and watching his face turn to concern. “Ryan, listen to me. I care so much for you and Kayla, more than I ever thought possible. I love you. That’s no secret, and you did love me before Christina came back in the picture.”
“Alissa, you know love doesn’t just fade away that quickly,” he said, looking up at Christina. “At least, it doesn’t for me.”
“Good,” I said, letting out a deep breath. “I don’t want you to have a relationship with her. She doesn’t love you, and you know that. I want us to be together: you, me, and Kayla. What you decide to do about Christina and Kayla is between the two of you, but I can’t go another day without you knowing how desperately I need you in my life. The two of you have brought my world into color, and I can breathe when I am with you. I don’t know the easy answer to all this, and how to keep Kayla from being hurt again, but I know that I can’t just let you go, either of you. I want to be in your lives, and more than just random holidays and family gatherings. I want us to be together.”
“You have some nerve,” Christina said from the background, forcing me to turn toward her. “You come marching in with your holier-than-thou attitude, preying on two people who were grieving their broken hearts, making them think that they love you, and now, you want to come back and make it worse for them. You are nothing more than a little jezebel, hell-bent on breaking up our family. We have history. History that you can’t just undo by walking in here with your fashionable clothing and a swish of your hips. Ryan knows that our family needs stability. That little girl needs me to be here with the both of them, t
aking care of them. The last thing they need is some little twit thinking she can breeze right through and wreck our home because she put some fresh paint on the walls and tried to make me disappear. Guess what, homewrecker? You can’t get rid of me that easily, and if he really loved you and not me, he would never have let you go.”
While part of me was livid that she had the audacity to speak to me in that tone after I was the one here helping to clean up the devastation she left behind, the other part of me was desperate for both of them to know I was not a homewrecker. I wasn’t trying to erase Christina from Kayla’s life. I was just trying to get back to Ryan where I knew we both belonged. I looked over at Ryan who looked back at me, his eyebrows furrowed. I took a step toward Christina and put up my hands.
“Christina,” I said. “You have to know that is not what I am trying to do. I am not in any way trying to take you out of Kayla’s life or replace you. But you know just as well as I do that you don’t love Ryan. You are just looking for somewhere to land.”
“How dare you?” she asked. “And I know you aren’t trying to replace me. You could never live up to the woman that I am. You are a pathetic little bitch, and you need to take your last-year style, ugly loafers and walk back out of here, forgetting about Kayla and Ryan forever, because they are my family. Not yours.”
“Enough,” Ryan yelled loudly, startling me. “Christina, please just shut the fuck up, because you are not part of this family. You gave up that right when you signed the divorce papers. And I swear to fucking God, if you ever speak that way to Alissa again, I will throw you out on your ass myself.”
I turned, surprised, and looked at Ryan, whose face began to soften as he turned back to me. Christina was silent in the background, and my heart was racing a million miles a minute. I thought for a moment he was going to yell at me, but relief was definitely present after he put Christina in her place. I stood there waiting. I stood there watching Ryan and hoping that whatever came next didn’t involve telling me to leave. This was where I was supposed to be.