Finding My Reason

by Claudia Burgoa

  “Isn’t it a little early for house visits?”

  “With the storm, we closed the office. Since I have some free time, I wanted to discuss our situation.” He steps inside, kissing my cheek and handing me a cup of coffee. “It’s decaf.”

  “I shouldn’t be eating or drinking chocolate,” I remind him as I read the words white mocha.

  He shrugs. “It’s for a day while we discuss...our future.”

  “Our future?” I raise an eyebrow, not understanding what future he’s talking about. “You mean our baby’s future and how we’ll co-parent.”

  There are words and phrases I’d rather not hear coming out of his mouth. We don’t have a future. Our baby has a future where his parents will be involved every step of the way. At least that’s what I expect. Heading to the kitchen for some juice, I see him reaching for his phone. He lifts his index finger, pointing at me as if saying don’t interrupt me. I wasn’t planning to. Last time I checked, I have no intentions to flirt with him or play dare. I dare you to stay calm while I blow you and suck you dry. “Yes, Stella. I won’t be in the office until next week. Thank you.”

  “Are you going out of town?” My curiosity piques when he mentions his assistant.

  “It depends on what you want us to do,” he responds. “I had an entire night to think about our situation. With the storm, there’s no way to move your things, but once it clears, we can take your stuff back home.”

  “I’m still pregnant,” I remind him that we fucked up his idea of a perfect relationship by adding a third member. “There are many reasons why your offer is...laughable.”

  Mornings don’t agree with me. The combination of hormones with the lack of caffeine is lethal. Hence, I avoid human contact until I’ve had my breakfast. Since Hudson interrupted my routine, I don’t feel bad about my behavior. “Let’s say I move back... Where am I staying? The guest room isn’t comfortable. Will your girlfriend agree with this little move? I think it’s a bit creepy living with your ex while dating. Where am I supposed to put my furniture? This time, I’m not getting rid of it just because you say. Why do you want me to move in with you? See, I never asked the first time, but I should ask now. Just to make sure I don’t make the same mistake twice. Oh and there’s the most important piece—you don’t want to have a family. Why bother?”

  He grits his teeth. I can practically hear them wearing down. “Look, I have good reasons to feel that way.” He sighs. “My mother never wanted to settle down and have a family. I was seven years old and my sister was still in diapers when my mom went AWOL. I can’t even remember her, but I remember how many years of loneliness my father endured trying to provide for us while running his garage. I love him for it, but I can’t half-ass raise a child in hopes she’ll turn out stable enough. You say you’ll be there her now, but what about a month after you give birth? Or six? How do you know you’ll be able to handle the stress?”

  I’m fighting the urge to punch him. He’s not subtle at all. “It’s not like I’m some teenager who’s broke and alone. I can handle raising our child alone. We don’t need you.”

  “That’s not what I mean!” he shouts, going to the fridge without giving me a glance. “I can’t make a free spirit like you stay in one place for long. You can’t do that with a kid. You won’t have the same freedoms you did before. I don’t want you to end up hating our kid and me.”

  “I'm not your mother, Hud—” I storm into the bathroom as my nose detects some disgusting smell and my stomach react to it.

  “You okay?” His mellow voice comes from behind me as he holds my hair and rubs my back. The gesture makes me want to cry, because I’ve wished for him to do this, be here while I’m sick or hold me tight while I cry for no apparent reason. “You’ve lost a lot of weight. Have you been eating well?”

  “Yeah.” I clean myself and march outside the bathroom. The space is too small to contain my anger and my need for him.

  He joins me in the kitchen. I sit down on a barstool as he starts to cook something. “Not eggs,” I tell him flatly. “I’ve puked enough for today.”

  He nods and grabs more stuff out of the pantry. I continue, “I’ve had my fun seeing the world, and I can do it again someday. I’m thirty-six. I don’t have much time left to have a child. I want him or her...and I’d love for her to have a father, but you are under no obligation to stick around.”

  “Okay,” he speaks up once he’s finished making pancakes. The silence has been suffocating, so I’m thankful. “Jade, you drive me fucking insane, but I love you. After digesting the news, I had time to think about what’s best for our kid. We should get married.”

  I blink twice, then make sure he’s standing in front of me, and not kneeling down. “Because it makes sense to be married now that I’m expecting your child? Let me guess. You pondered your next move all night.” He crosses his arms and nods.

  I smile at him, jump out of my seat and grab his coat. Shoving it against him with all the strength that I have, I kick him out of my house. “This isn’t a game, Hudson. My offer was only to get to meet your child and be involved in her life. Our relationship died.”

  “Fuck, Jade. I’m giving you what you want. You won.” I open the door and point toward the outside. “Think about our child. Wouldn’t it be easier if we were married?”

  “I won?” He’s unbelievable. My blood is boiling. “No one won, Hudson. We both got our hearts broken, and neither one is happy with the results. I lost the love of my life. You... I don’t know what you lost, but certainly, you’ll lose if you marry me. That’s not what you want, at least not with me.

  “This isn’t the eighteenth century, Hudson Drago. If and when I marry, it’ll be to someone who loves me unconditionally and wants to spend the rest of his life with me,” I clarify.

  “I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you,” he fights back, getting closer to me. “But I don't want to marry you, and I or have a child.”

  “Leave,” I repeat.

  “No. Everything came out wrong, Jade. Fuck.” He growls, putting on his coat and his gloves. “You’re driving me insane. I contradict myself at least ten times while you are around, and I’m lost when you’re not. The only thing I know for sure is how much I love you and that I don’t want to be without you. It took me eight years to have you, I can’t fathom the possibility of being without you another eight—or forever. Giving you space didn’t work, offering to marry you came out wrong. I do want our baby.”

  “Out.”

  He clenches his jaw, combing his hair with one hand. “Tell me what to do, because not having you in my life isn’t an option.”

  Leaning against the frame, I try to digest his words. Nothing he says makes sense, yet, some of his words are exactly what I wanted to hear months ago. “I can’t trust you with my heart—not again.”

  “Your heart.” He gasps, his eyebrows gather in a pained expression. “But it’s mine. I...” He’s silent for several beats.

  “Sorry for disrupting your morning, it wasn’t my intention.” He stands right in front of me. “We’ll figure this out one day at a time.” He kisses my cheek, walking outside the apartment.

  • • •

  Hudson

  I’m a fucking asshole. “You won!”

  Insensitive fucker.

  Trust. She won’t trust me with her heart. I owned her heart. It was mine.

  Fuck!

  I slam the door of the fridge after getting a beer out. Is it too early to start drowning my sorrows? What the hell was I thinking when I said those words? I proposed marriage to my longtime live-in girlfriend the same way I used to suggest breakfast. “What will it be today honey? Toast or a destination wedding.”

  Ben would be happy to hand over my ass after he finds out what I just did. Why wait, I should call Brody and let him pound me until I see some reason. The problem isn’t how to get her back. Trust. I have to convince her that I can be trusted with her heart.

  I stand for several minutes in the
middle of my apartment as if looking for a sign. A clue on what to do next. Everything came crashing down after she decided to change the rules. Is she right, if she had been the love of my life I would have done it right away? Fuck. What happened? Everything used to be so easy between us. If I could call one of my best friends, they’d know what to say. The problem is that one is Jade and the other is Brody—who refuses to get in the middle of my fucked up relationship.

  How do I demolish the walls she placed to protect herself—from me? As I ponder my next move, my cellphone buzzes.

  Adriana: I think we should talk. Can you come over to my house?

  I stare at my phone. She’s been messaging me since last night. Asking me to visit her, to meet her at the coffee shop, or give her my address so she can come over.

  Me: I can’t, Adriana. I’m dealing with a family issue at the moment.

  Adriana: It’s her, isn’t she? She snaps her fingers, and you jump like a Pavlov dog.

  Me: If that were the case, maybe I wouldn’t be facing the problem I’m facing right now.

  Adriana: When can I see you?

  Call her? Is she crazy? How smart would it be to continue my friendship with Adriana? The answer comes quickly as I glance at my apartment which hasn’t changed much since the day Jade left. It remains lifeless, like me. There’re no fresh flowers, or music. Last night, after I came back from her place I thought about us. How much I missed her and how I wanted to be with her every second of the day. Fuck, she’s been sick, and I haven’t been by her side. She’s been doing this alone, with no one to hold her at night. I know she can do it, but I hate not being there to look after her.

  What I’d give to be able to cuddle her while she napped. Care for her the way I used to do it. Laugh with her, dry her tears when she’s watching some sad movie. Love her. How do I win her heart back?

  As I dialed my father’s number, I feel seven again instead of the forty-year-old man I’m supposed to be. Is the call even worth it?

  “Son, how are you doing?” He answers right away. “I heard the news earlier. They said you’re getting slammed with six feet of snow.”

  “We’re not getting as much in the city, Pops. Only about two feet, but enough to close the entire city.” I sigh, thinking about what else I can add to the conversation but opting to cut the crap. “Jade is pregnant.”

  I hold my breath, expecting him to either chide me for knocking up my girlfriend or congratulate me. Maybe ask how she’s doing. Then fear that he’ll have questions I won’t know how to answer because Jade and I haven’t had a conversation regarding the baby. Instead, he says only two words, “I see.”

  My heart feels heavy, as disappointment washes through my body. Shouldn’t he be happy about the news? His son is going to become a father. Then, I think about Jade and how she must have felt yesterday after she delivered the news and I remained stoic.

  I run a hand through my head and walk around the apartment trying to settle the rage toward myself for treating the love of my life the way I’ve had. Towards my father because he can’t even fake being happy for us. Maybe he doesn’t like Jade.

  “She’s not bad, you know,” I defend her. “In fact, Jade’s amazing. Loving, caring. Smart and funny. Keeps me grounded and makes me feel as if I can take over the world. I don’t get why you don’t like her. She’s been nothing but nice to you. Every year she chooses your birthday present and makes sure to send you a Christmas gift.”

  “I love that girl,” he says his voice doesn’t waver. “I am just trying to understand your tone. You don’t sound happy, son. Care to explain.”

  “We’re not together anymore,” I breathe the words out, my stomach hardens when I finally accept the reality of us. From all my friends, only Brody knows that Jade and I broke up. My assistant guessed because Jade stopped dropping by the office every Monday and Friday. Accepting the reality to those who know us as Jade and Hudson makes it real. Adriana learned I was no longer with her. I only said that she had broken up with me. It is now that I tell the story. Every word I say pinches my heart. From the way I treated my girlfriend to how I reacted to the news about our baby. “My life lost its color. The food is tasteless, and I haven’t been able to sleep much since she left.”

  “That’s quite a tale, son,” he comments. “You didn’t use to be this against marriage.”

  I settle down on the couch while I listen to him. “If memory serves, you were a bleeding heart romantic up until you left for college.”

  “That was a lifetime ago, Pops.”

  “Something happened. What changed your mind about it, son?” He’s pretty warm with his approach. “I’ve always known she’s the one. You talked about this girl you met who traveled fondly. When you announced you two were dating, I waited for an engagement announcement, a wedding invitation, something.”

  “My priorities changed Pops. Fresh out of college, nothing mattered but my career,” I describe. “Maybe there was a period when I did want to get married. A slight period in my early thirties. I kept waiting around for Jade to stop traveling instead of admitting that I was in love with her, and telling her to come home already.”

  “And then what?” Pops has a nonjudgmental tone that always gets me to spill my guts.

  I shrug. “I gave up, I guess. I thought I needed a wife and kids to fill this hole in my heart or some shit. But Mom didn’t stick around, and just babysitting my best friend’s kids with this girl I had never dated made all of that loneliness go away. What was the point of putting in all this effort for someone who could never be mine?”

  “But she is.” Pops remains silent, and I walk to the bathroom where the last piece of her remains. Her shell collection. I helped collect those. We’d bring a little piece of the beach home. She loves the mountains, but she also enjoyed being close to the sea. “Your problem isn’t that you couldn’t get her. It’s that you already saw her as your partner, and then when she was, you did nothing to move your relationship forward.”

  Pops keeps his tone steady. The man has the patience of clam, but I’m sure he’s ready to give me a good yelling. “You can’t put your life on pause because you’re afraid something might happen if you take a chance. And you’re far too young to be set in your ways about how life should and shouldn’t be. There’s no cut and dry way to love.”

  “I’m not saying that,” I defend.

  “Listen to yourself.” He chuckles in amusement. “You act like marriage is a death sentence. Not every marriage goes up in smokes.”

  “Then tell me why?” I snap. “Why did she leave you?”

  He goes silent. I open my mouth to apologize for opening old wounds, but before I say a word he speaks, “because we wanted different things, and I was too stubborn to compromise.” He sighs. “She gave me everything I could’ve ever wanted. How did I repay her? A few trinkets here, some flowers there... Son, no one wants a relationship based on ‘good enough.’ Good enough is for children’s art projects and quitters. You have to fight for your woman.”

  “Did you fight for Mom?”

  “No.” His voice is loud.

  “But you loved her,” I throw his word, expecting the right answer. There must be a reason why he didn’t and maybe the reason why I shouldn’t fight for my relationship.

  “I fucked up our relationship son. That’s on me,” then he pauses, lowering his voice, “but she abandoned our children. I’ll never forgive her for that.”

  Picking up the tiniest shell of our collection, I think about our baby and how Jade is fighting me to protect it. She’s nothing like my mother. She came back when it was time for her to settle. She came back to me. Why did I doubt her? “What do I do, Dad?”

  “A happy marriage isn’t easy, Hudson,” His soothing voice placates me. “It requires more than a couple of signatures and a fancy party. It’s about trust, companionship, compromising, love, hard work and respect. I’ve watched your relationship from afar, and I think you pretty much have that—less the paper. I wish you h
ad called me before you tossed the best thing that’s happened to you down the drain.”

  He’s right. We had it.

  A perfect relationship. Perfect for us. Brody said it, marriage is a legality. Her parents abandoned her without a name or birth certificate. She jumped from home to home because no one would claim her. She has a framed copy of her birth certificate. She didn’t ask for much. Then, why was I so dumb? The melon size note inside my throat prevents me from talking. I threw our happiness because of my fear. I had come to that conclusion before, why didn’t I look for her? Because I found an easy way to wipe the loneliness. Adriana. Though this time I kept her at arm’s length because I couldn’t betray Jade.

  “It’s going to take more than a miracle to get her back,” I finally break the silence. “It took me years to convince her that we’d be great together.”

  “Well, son,” he says with a smile in his voice. “Let’s hope you learned from that first time and you can make it happen within months.”

  “Thank you for listening, Dad,” I rub my forehead with the heel of my hand after I hang up. Maybe the phone call helped me find perspective, but I didn’t find a quick solution. The bottom line is that I have to find a way back to her and fight for us.

  Chapter 28

  Hudson

  April 3rd, 2016

  Wiggling myself back into Jade’s life feels harder than raising my sister and dealing with my grieving father. For years I dealt with a toddler, girl, teenager and now an adult who believes we have to bow to her. Maybe we made her feel that way while she was a baby, because she had lost her mother, a woman who didn’t love her, and in my need to be a good son and brother, I made sure she had everything and never missed Mom. I worked hard so she wouldn’t bother Dad because I feared he’d leave us. I did more than what a kid my age should have done because I wanted them to be okay.