“I blurted out that I am engaged today, he was pushing to find out who I was talking to, wanting to know what kinds of friends I have and I just sort of spit it out. I wanted to hurt him, and I really think I did.”
She doesn’t say anything.
“I didn’t want to hurt him like that, I think he is depressed, he said “I came back for nothing. Maybe my going there isn’t a good idea? Maybe I should stop?”
Stacy shakes her head taking Elizabeth out of my arms and laying her into a bouncer seat in front of the sofa.
“He needs you, you can’t stop going there. You don’t understand that you are the only one he was thinking of when he was fighting to live, he came back for you. He comes back through those horrible panic attacks and only wants you. Have you ever seen him have one?”
I have seen small ones, but I know the ones he has in the middle of the night, when I am not there are much worse. Stacy knows this.
“Give him some time, you need to just help him get through all of this, and then you can go back to your life the way it was before.”
I look at her, and I know exactly what she is doing. She knows that my life isn’t going to go back to the way that it was before. She knows that even spending a few moments with Tyler brought back feelings, once stored away. It doesn’t mean that I don’t want to marry Heath, but it does mean that I am fighting myself to not fall in love with him again.
The countless conversations about absolutely nothing until he falls asleep nearly every night. The card games in which he always finds a way to let me win. I was already growing reattached to having him back in my life. I don’t want to lose that again.
“I’m not going to not have him as a friend again, I just don’t know if he is going to like knowing that I have plans on marrying another man.”
“How are things with Heath?”
“They are good, I think he misses us, he is trying to find time to come down and see us, but until then we talk on the phone as often as possible. He’s swamped at work, the ER is always super busy and the hospital had to lay off a few doctors.”
“What about Evan, have you and Tyler talked about Evan?”
“Of course not!” I nearly shout
Stacy flinches
“I’m sorry Stacy, no we haven’t I don’t know what there is to say.”
“Why don’t you ask him while it is just the two of you why he was not there for your son, why he hasn’t asked about him, why he didn’t try to be there?”
I need to. I need to know why.
“I’m going to. I have to.”
We hang out for a few more hours, and then I head home to tuck Evan into bed.
And I return back to my post at the hospital. Tyler doesn’t talk to me when I get there, but when he starts to have a nightmare, I hold his hand and he clutches mine, like letting go would be the most painful thing in the world.
I stand by him as he continues to work on walking.
I stay with him and stay with him, and I consider how I can bring up the subject of our son, how I can ask him why he never cared. How he could act like he still had feelings for me, but not for our son.
I don’t get a chance, before Heath blindsides me and shows up in Georgia, in Tyler’s hospital room of all places.
Chapter thirty
“I’ll go refill your water pitcher, the nurse hasn’t been by in a while.”
Tyler laughs at my inability to sit still. I have never really carried that trait.
“I’ll be here.” He winks, as I head for the door.
I get the nurse to refill the container, and decide to call mom quickly and check in on Evan.
“I have been trying to call you for an hour, Alyssa.” Mom sounds worried.
“What’s wrong Mom? What happened?”
“Nothing, Heath is in town, he came by here looking for you. He is on his way to the hospital to see you. I tried to get him to stay here until I could get a hold of you, but he was too excited to see you.”
“He’s coming here?” I ask dumbfounded, why would he just show up and not tell me. Why would he just come to the hospital?
“He has to be there by now, I know you and Tyler have been spending a lot of time together, and I get the feeling that is exactly why he’s here Alyssa, he misses you, but he wants to know that you and Tyler are not drudging up old feelings.”
I end the call with mom, telling her that I will let her know how things go. I am rather hoping that I can catch Heath before he meets Tyler.
Not that I don’t want them to meet, at some point they will, but I would rather it be on my terms and when Tyler isn’t in the hospital anymore.
I turn the corner to Tyler’s room and see that the door is still closed, as I left it earlier when I went to get the water.
I breathe a sigh of relief, if Heath had shown up, he would have left the door open and come back out to look for me.
I look up and down the hall way, it’s late in the evening, so not many people are out and about.
I walk toward the front of the hospital, checking my phone on my way. I figure Heath probably texted me to ask me what room Tyler is in.
I don’t see him.
I check the cafeteria on the other end of the hospital, he’s not there either.
I call his phone, voicemail picks up after 2 rings.
I decide to give up, maybe he got lost on the way here or something.
I walk back towards Tyler’s room. His door is still shut. I look in through the tiny window on the door, Tyler is laying in his bed, eyes closed. Fist clenched. I can see his chest moving rapidly up and down.
He’s having a nightmare.
“Hey, I’m here.” I whisper as I walk through the door. Walking towards his bedside, taking his hand into mine like I always do to soothe him.
He jerks his eyes open and looks at me, anger in his eyes and rips his hand away from me.
“Don’t touch me!” he shouts.
“What the hell?” I snap. He’s not dreaming
“Hey, Alyssa.”
Heath
I turn around and he’s sitting in my chair, leg crossed. Hands folded in his lap.
“Heath, what are you doing here?” I ask.
“What, your fiancé can’t be here too?” Tyler asks sarcasm lacing his voice
“What is your problem?” I ask Tyler “I told you I was engaged.”
“Yeah, the lovely doctor here was telling me all about your beautiful little life in New York, telling me about how you are getting married any day now. I kind of fucked that up.” He laughs
“What’s your point?”
“Alyssa…” Heath warns
I look at Heath and back to Tyler
“No, I have given up my entire life for 3 months to sit by him in the hospital and he is going to act like a dick because the fiancé he knew I had shows up?”
“You think that’s my issue?” Tyler spits. Sitting up, ripping the blankets off his body.
“I don’t know what is going on, honestly just tell me.” I plead.
“Alyssa, let’s just go. I came to get you, let’s go see Evan and spend some time together.”
I freeze. Looking at Tyler and back to Heath.
“I slipped. I didn’t mean to, I thought he knew. I thought… I didn’t realize…” Heath drifts off
“You sat here for 3 months, holding my hand, making me laugh. Making me remember why I have loved you for the past 13 years of my life and didn’t even bother to tell me about my son. How fucking heartless are you?”
A nurse comes running in, she looks at the three of us and says to Heath; “sir I need you to step out, family only in this room.”
He looks at me and then to the nurse. “I’m a doctor in New York, I was just visiting my fiancé and her old friend.”
“Some fucking friend.” Tyler mutters.
The nurse nods “she’s his next of kin, she can stay.”
Heath looks at confused, I shrug my shoulders.
“
I need to talk to him, alone I’ll be right out.” I announce.
Heath leans in to give me a hug on the way out, I wrap one arm around him. Looking at Tyler. He has tears in his eyes. And he’s angry. Which makes me angry.
Heath walks out into the hallway, gently closing the door behind him.
I walk back over to the chair I have sat in for every single day for months and scoot it far back across the room so that I am not near Tyler.
He notices.
“You hated me so much for leaving, that you held my son from me?”
It’s a question, not a statement.
“You are kidding me right, you are going to sit there and be like that?”
He stands and slowly, with the effort of keeping himself calm, walks towards me. I stand up and stand face to face with him. I am not going to have him tower over me. Not when he is accusing ME of keeping Evan a secret.
“I have never been more serious about anything in my life. Why would you do something so hateful?”
I am speechless, when Stacy and I talked about finally confronting Tyler on the Evan topic, I never thought he would play it off as me being the bad guy. I thought he would admit to not being ready to be a father. I thought he would tell me that he knew, but just didn’t want him. I never thought he would try and accuse me of doing something sinister.
“I loved you Alyssa, I almost skipped getting on that plane 3 times going to Hawaii, I couldn’t imagine a world where I wouldn’t see your face every single day. But I went, because I knew that I needed to do something with my life to make you proud, myself proud and this was it. You had my son and you never even bothered to tell me about it. How could I have been so wrong about you for so long?”
He turns around, grabbing his hospital bath robe off the bed, putting it on. “I’m actually glad you are getting married to someone else. I am glad I found this out now before I did anything else to fool myself into thinking you ever gave a damn about me.”
“I gave a damn about you, enough to leave my entire life up and fly to Germany because you needed me. This whole thing has been some sort of joke. I can’t believe you would ever think I could keep a child from you, but you know what I’m done. You are not the same guy I knew growing up, if you were, you would never say any of these things to me.”
I grab my jacket and purse heading towards the door.
“My brother punched you in the face at my graduation when you brought your fiancé, do you remember that?”
He nods, but doesn’t say anything.
“Why, would Matthew ever be angry with you, if I were the one who was keeping secrets? Don’t bother answering me, but just think back, my brother, my Mom and my Dad they all were there. They knew what happened, and they wouldn’t have anything to do with you for those first 2 years until you came back to town. If you knew my family at all, you would know they would never cast you aside for anything. I’m done with this conversation. I am done with you. You can find someone else to hold your hand and wipe your forehead and calm you down. Maybe Jessica is around? I don’t really care, but do me two favors, check your damn emails from when you deployed back in Hawaii, and never, ever tell me that I am the selfish and hateful one. Ever.”
I walk out of his hospital room, slamming the door behind me. Marching straight to the nurses’ station, “I demand that I be removed from his next of kin, I want no further contact with that man call someone who gives a shit.”
Heath is behind me, grabbing my arm. This isn’t like me. I don’t yell, I certainly don’t swear in hospitals, but I can’t help it. I am so hurt and angry.
I hear the sound of glass smashing and look back to see the water pitcher I had filled for Tyler fly through the hospital door window.
He’s having a panic attack. I can hear him yelling, the nurse runs in with a doctor on her tail.
For a moment I consider walking back in there. Telling him that I didn’t mean anything that I said. Try to find a way to forgive him for thinking all of those hurtful things about me.
But then I remember, that I was starting to fall in love with him again. Hell, maybe it never went away fully, but I was feeling an attachment for him that I had no business feeling, not when I was engaged to someone else.
How could he think I would keep Evan away from him? I emailed him that night. I told him that I was pregnant, he was too busy drinking to celebrate his last night before deploying to who knows where. His friend even messaged me back. No, the only person who was at fault here was Tyler, Tyler only.
And he has a wife, so I think between the two of us, he’s the one who needs to explain, and the only one who needs to feel hateful and selfish.
I jerk my arm away from Heath, realizing just now that he is rubbing my back and trying to soothe me. I don’t want to be touched, I don’t want to be coddled, I just want to get the hell away from Tyler Pierce and all the shit he makes me feel.
Chapter thirty-one
Heath stays in a hotel room. He could have stayed at the house with us, but I honestly needed a few moments without the man in my face trying to make me feel better.
Matthew was pissed that Heath said anything to Tyler. The more that I think about it, there was no way that Heath thought I had mentioned Evan to Tyler, he knew from the last year that we have been together, that Evan was a subject I didn’t really want to discuss with Tyler until I felt the time was right. I would have gone to Heath and told him about that conversation, had Tyler and I ever had it.
No. I think Heath wanted to mark his territory and show that he has stepped up and that Tyler needed to be thankful. I think he was trying to act like the big man and make Tyler feel small.
But that doesn’t explain why Tyler pretended to never know about Evan.
Mom and I talk when I get home. I cry, of course I cry, that is what I do when it comes to Tyler, I cry and feel sorry for myself. It’s my thing. That man breaks my heart when he doesn’t even fully have it.
I think it is the fact that he found a way to try and attack my character. I am a good person, no I am not perfect, but I became a single mother at 17, I did everything I could to inform Tyler, he didn’t want to call me that night. He didn’t want to Skype, he walked away. After that the only time I saw him again is when he is with his fiancé, what I am I supposed to say? Was I expected to beg him?
Matthew leaves for the Hospital. He’s been working at a law firm in town while working on his law degree. There is a pre-law program at his law firm that allows him to work side by side with some of Savannah’s best attorneys. I can tell that he would rather be going anywhere but dealing with this stuff again.
I ask him not to go. Honestly it will solve nothing more than putting another wall up between Tyler and Matt, but he won’t listen to me. He wants to know what is going on, he wants to know why Tyler is being a jerk.
I hold Evan all night. He has the sniffles. Nothing serious, but he wants his mommy. I cry when I think about all the time I have missed with my son over the last few months because I was out taking care of his dad. I resent Tyler once again, but I know deep down it was my choice to spend all that time caring for him. He only needed me when he first came back from Germany, I am the one who thought it would be a good idea to stay with him every day after that, because he said it helped. They all said that I made him better.
Clearly I didn’t make him better.
“Where is his wife?” I ask my mother.
She looks down at her hands, rubbing them on the red hand towel that is laying on the kitchen counter.
“Why hasn’t his mother brought his daughter to him? Why the hell is he worried about Evan when he has another child and a wife out there?” I slam the glass I just washed down, causing it to shatter.
Mom gasps, I look down thinking that she is concerned with the glass, but see that I have sliced my hand. Blood is dripping everywhere.
I don’t feel anything.
She grabs my hand, in one of her hers and reaches over to turn on the sink so that it
is a light stream of warm water, running my hand below the run of water.
“Oh Alyssa.” She whispers.
Tears well up in my eyes, and I am not sure if it is my mother’s pity or the fact that I suddenly feel an intense amount of pain running up my arm.
“You need stitches. Let me get my purse and have your father sit with Evan, we’ll run to the Emergency Room.”
I shake my head, I don’t want to go back to that hospital, I don’t want to be in the same building with that man.
“Call Heath, he keeps a Doctor’s bag with him everywhere he goes, he’ll be able to do it.”
Mom shakes her head, kissing my cheek and rubbing my hair in a thoughtful motion before wrapping my hand in a clean cloth and reaching for her cell phone out of her back pocket.
Heath is there in 10 minutes.
“What did you do Alyssa?” He laughs, taking my hand and leading me back towards the kitchen table.
His doctor’s bag is open, showing a stethoscope, some vials of medication and a suture kit. I knew he would have what I needed.
I start crying before he even touches my hand to begin stitching the wound.
“Aw Alyssa, don’t cry.” He pulls my hand to the side so that he can pull me into a hug.
He is rubbing my back and whispering into my hair that he loves me, that everything is going to be okay.
“He said so many mean things. I honestly don’t know why I let it bother me so much. I really don’t. I knew there was a possibility that he was going to pretend that it was my fault that he had nothing to do with his son, but I didn’t realize that it would hurt as much when he actually did.”
Heath nods his head, pouring a clear solution over my hand that stings. He takes a magnifying glass out of his bag and begins to look for pieces of glass. When he is satisfied that there is none, he wipes my hand and looks into my eyes.
“I knew he didn’t know. When I walked in, he was smiling and thought it was you. It bothered me that he looked so smug when I told him who I was and why I was there. He saw the flowers in my hand and he just looked like he had one up on me. He told me not to get too comfortable being in town. I knew it wasn’t a good idea Alyssa, I knew that I shouldn’t have said a damn word, but I didn’t want him to think that he held all the cards. I know that you will hate me for this. I know that you are going to blame me, and that’s okay. I shouldn’t have said anything I just didn’t like the look that he had on his face. Like he knew he had your heart and he was just letting me borrow it for a while.”
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