by Claire Adams
“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, hellbent 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, taking 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.
Chapter 37
Ryan
My hand reached down and grasped Alissa’s wrist, and I squeezed hard as I looked down at her brave face and smiled. I turned and looked at Christina, who was standing there with her arms crossed in front of her, her foot tapping on the floor. I took a step toward her and stood tall, not willing to take her shit for even one second more.
“Do you want the truth?” I asked.
“Of course, Ryan,” she said in her faked sweet tone.
“I have been trying so hard since Alissa called me and told me that I should give you chance to come back in our lives for Kayla,” I said, ignoring her look of surprise and glance over at Alissa. “I have been racking my brain on how to make this work, but to be honest, I am just tired of it. I’m tired of trying at something that my heart just isn’t into.”
“Ryan—”
“No,” I said, putting up my hand. “Let me talk. I have watched you so closely since you came back, and I have made excuse after excuse in my head for the way that you’ve been acting. I have given you chance after chance, hoping that I was making the right choice for our little girl, but you have done nothing but show me that you don’t actually like being back with me and Kayla. I didn’t send Kayla to my father’s so I could spend time with you, or to give her time with him. I sent her there for a few days to give her relief from this hell. She has been coming to me over and over again, asking me why you were so mad at her. Do you know how much that breaks my heart that my daughter has to ask me why her own mother is angry at her? Your actions have alienated you, and you have driven Kayla even further away from you.”
“That is not true,” Christina said. “I have not been acting mad toward her at all. You have to understand how strange of a situation this is. I won’t lie and say that I feel completely comfortable, knowing my husband is watching me like a hawk, judging my every move, and some woman is lurking by the door to snatch my family away at any second. Do you know what kind of pressure that puts on me? I am trying to make this work, but I don’t feel okay en
ough to let down my guard and feel free to be who I am.”
“Let down your guard?” I asked, getting angrier. “Why would you have a guard to let down? You were the one that left us. If anyone should have their guard up, it should be me and Kayla, to protect us from the likes of you, and how selfish of a person you really are. I knew you didn’t really think you made a mistake. You just proved it by defending yourself and blaming the outcome of this on everyone but yourself.”
“Ryan, I came here to put our family back together,” she said angrily. “I came here so that we could fix this, and we could become that loving couple and daughter that we used to be. I want us to have that. I want us to be a family again. Why can’t you see that?”
“We had a family, Christina,” I yelled at her. “We had a family until you decided to up and leave us for Dale.”
“There is no reason that we can’t have that again,” she said pleadingly. “That we can’t have our home with our traditions and our togetherness.”
“You don’t give a damn about any of that,” I scoffed. “You haven’t shown me one damn thing to make me feel otherwise. You have mocked me and my choices at every single turn. You got mad when I didn’t want to talk about you and me, when I wanted to focus on Kayla, which should have been the most important thing for you. I don’t understand why you are in such a hurry to push this relationship crap. Didn’t you get enough relationship when you ran off with Dale to God knows where? Or did you do the same thing to him, too? Did you get tired of his bullshit charm and just woke up one day and bailed on him, leaving someone else there to clean up the mess? Not that I give two shits about that man, but it seems to be your MO to just use and abuse people and throw them out.”
“Goddamnit,” she screamed. “He broke up with me, okay? Is that what you want to hear? He crushed me like I’m sure you would love to do to me as well.”
I stopped and dropped my hands to my sides, looking back at Alissa in disbelief. Her eyes got wide, and she shook her head, thinking exactly what I was thinking. Christina didn’t come back here of her own free will. She had nowhere else to go. Anger started to bubble in my gut, thinking about how hard I pushed to help her have a relationship with her daughter. I had given up the love of my life, thinking that I was doing the best thing that I could for my daughter, and all for someone who was running from one relationship back to the safety she thought she would find here with me and Kayla.
“Ryan,” she said, realizing that she had just fucked up.
“Shh,” I said, trying to collect my thoughts. “Just be quiet for a minute so I can process what you just said.
My heart was beating furiously in my chest, even though my outside demeanor was calm and collected. It was taking everything in me not to toss her straight out the door in a fit of anger. I paced back and forth, rubbing my chin before stopping and looking up at her, an eerie laugh escaping my chest.
“You mean to tell me that you came here under the guise that you realized you made a mistake and you wanted us, not him. But you really were just trying to find a safe place to land? You thought you would come right back into our lives and slide right back in without thought. You came back to my house, and broke up my relationship, and turned Kayla’s life upside down, and you were doing it all because your little boyfriend kicked you to the curb? How fucking typical is that? You’re a selfish little bitch. How dare you think you can march back in here? How dare you call Alissa the homewrecker when, in fact, you’re the one trying to wreck this house? You’re the one that came in, trying to break up something really good between me, Kayla, and Alissa.”
“Ryan, I know it sounds bad, but that is not how it happened,” she said, putting up her hands. “I was already ready to leave, wanting to come back here and be with you and Kayla. He did me a favor by cutting it off.”
“Oh, stop with the bullshit, Christina,” I said. “Please, stop. I don’t want to hear any more of your damn lies. Can’t you, for once, just be fucking honest? Can’t you admit that you just came back here for my roof, my bank account, and my stability because you have thrown away every relationship with every person you have ever met?”
“That’s not how it is, please Ryan,” she said, pleading.
“No, that is exactly how it is. You don’t give a damn about Kayla. You never have, and you never will. That is why it was so hard for you to be a mother to her, because you don’t actually give two shits about your own fucking daughter.”
“How dare you?” she asked through gritted teeth. “I have raised that little girl from the time I pushed her out of my womb. Do you know how much I have sacrificed for the two of you?”
From behind me, I heard a small giggle, and I turned and looked at Alissa. She had stayed silent this entire time, which I was sure had to have been difficult. She was shaking her head and rubbing her face, completely done with listening to the two of us argue back and forth.
“What the hell is so funny?” Christina shouted at Alissa. “Just leave!”
“No, nothing is funny,” Alissa said through an exhausted laugh. “There isn’t a single thing about any of this that’s funny. In fact, it’s really sad. It’s sad that you think you can come in here and act this way when you are the one with the problem. I’m sorry, Ryan, but I’ve held my tongue for far too long with this situation.”
I nodded and gestured for her to continue.
She turned back to look at Christina. “You said earlier that you came to fix what you had broken, but sweetie, you are way too late for that. Where were you when Kayla would cry herself to sleep every night? Where were you when she would stare out the window, hoping you would show up for holidays? Where were you when her grades began to slip, and she didn’t give a damn about anything? Oh, that’s right. You were shacked up, trying to live the single life. You are the most selfish woman I have ever met. Children are a blessing, and there are so many people out there who can’t have them. You can, and you did, and you threw her away like some little doll you got tired of playing with. You don’t deserve to be here. You don’t deserve Ryan in your life. And you definitely don’t deserve one single hug, kiss, or kind word from that beautiful little girl. If anyone should leave, it should be you. Before you do more damage than you already have. Go find some other guy who will fall for your bullshit, and get the hell out of these beautiful people’s lives.”
I looked over at Alissa with love and thanks for the words she spoke. I could tell she was more upset than I realized. Everything she said was the honest truth. It was a truth I couldn’t have said better myself. Alissa had cut right to the heart of things, and I could see how much she loved Kayla. It was all the more obvious compared to the cold-hearted bitch that pretended to call herself a mother.
I was proud to have such a strong and loving woman beside me through all of this. I didn’t deserve it, not even for a second. Before I could even reach out to grab her hand, I saw Christina move in my peripheral vision.
“How dare you, you bitch,” she screamed, racing forward with her arm cocked back.
Christina approached and began to swing her hand toward Alissa’s face, and I grabbed her around the waist and pinned her hands behind her back. She screamed and struggled as I moved her toward the door and pushed her away from the two of us. I grabbed her purse from the coffee table and raced back toward her, watching as she tried to gather herself amongst her tears and anger. I threw her purse at her chest and shook my head.
“You are the biggest mistake I ever made,” I said calmly. “I don’t want you anywhere near this house ever again. Do you understand me? I could call the cops right now if I really wanted to, but I won’t. Instead, I’m giving you the opportunity to leave and completely forget that we exist. Don’t call, don’t show up, don’t send gifts, nothing. I will deal with the aftermath of what you have just done to our little girl, but I promise you it will be the last time that I ever do this. If I so much as hear that you are thinking about Kayla, I will take you to court and get you’re rights take
n so fast, that you won’t even realize what happened. You wanted to be alone. Well, there you go. You got your wish. You’re all alone. Now get the hell out of our lives.”
Chapter 38
Alissa
I stood there, completely shocked at the turn of events. I had no idea that me speaking out like that would cause Christina to completely lose her mind. I stared over at this shell of a woman as she clutched her purse to her chest, tears streaming down her face and her hair matted to her forehead. Ryan was breathing heavily after grabbing her before she could slap me right across the face.
“You know what?” she asked through her sobs, clenching her fist and shaking it at Ryan. “I now realize that coming here was a huge mistake.”
“You think?” He smiled and taunted her, and I could tell he felt justified in his response.
“You are a piece of shit with no future,” she said, looking at Ryan. “I knew I should have never married you in the first place. You had no ambition in life.”
“Yes, because starting a company from scratch and growing it to what it is now takes zero ambition.” He chuckled. “I wasn’t the one who sat around drinking wine, gossiping, spending money, and ignoring her family while taking credit for being mother of the year.”
“You son of a bitch,” she growled. “No wonder Kayla has turned out to be such a spoiled little brat. I can’t even recognize her as my own daughter anymore. It’s sad what you have turned her into. She used to be so sweet and girlie, and now you are satisfied with baseball uniforms and letting her do whatever it is she wants to do. You want to blame me for everything, but you don’t even know how to properly raise a little girl. You are the one that screwed her up, and you can be the one to blame for me washing my hands of you and her. I won’t be seen with people who don’t know how to be civilized and have some sort of class.”