The Heart of a Girl (The Haven Series)

by Kaitlyn Oruska

  I’d come full circle and it didn’t feel any better.

  “No,” Adam begged me. “Don’t leave. I swear I’ll do whatever you want to make up for it. I’ll stay home every single night and I’ll be better with everything. I won’t put so much pressure on you. I’ll do anything. Lainey, please don’t leave.”

  Now he was the one crying, the one about to lose whatever grip he had left on sanity. But I forced myself not to care. I smiled sadly and pulled my engagement ring off. A part of me had a feeling we weren’t headed to the altar anytime soon, let alone this coming June, but it still hurt to do so. “Here,” I whispered, handing it to him.

  “No,” he whispered, desperate, and followed me into Harper’s room. Our baby girl was still fast asleep, oblivious to the turmoil going on around her.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered to her, even though she couldn’t hear me and wouldn’t understand. But more than anything else, I was sorry. Sorry that her father and I weren’t going to be able to make this work. Sorry that she was going to have to grow up with broken home, the way so many other people I’d known had. I wanted to be the exception. I’d wanted to give her all that I’d never had for myself and it wasn’t going to happen.

  Adam stood in the doorway and remained silent as I packed up Harper’s stuff. He followed me into our bedroom when I was done and closed the door behind us.

  “Don’t leave,” he said again and I ignored him. There was nothing he could say that was going to change my mind. I could forgive one time, but not two months full of times. Times when he was away from me, our little family the furthest thing from his mind. Times when Natalie was the girl he loved once again because that made me think maybe it had been her all along. Maybe I was just the girl who was willing to give him everything she hadn’t been, a replacement.

  I didn’t know if that were ridiculous or not, but it hurt either way. It was over because it had to be. There was no going back form this and honestly, I wasn’t sure I’d want that, anyway. This was his doing.

  I packed my bags and he watched me, the look on his face growing more desperate with every passing moment. I wondered how it felt, watching your life dissolve before your eyes. I felt I might know firsthand, but I’d become numb right after his confession. I felt nothing but sheer determination.

  “Where are you going to go?” He asked finally.

  “I don’t know,” I replied.

  “Go to my parents’ house. Stay there until we figure this out. Or stay here and I’ll leave.”

  “There is nothing left to figure out, Adam. You cheated on me. While I was at home taking care of our baby, you were out doing… things I don’t even want to think about with your ex-girlfriend. There’s nothing left, Adam. It’s over.”

  “It’s never going to be over,” he insisted and it hurt me how much he seemed to honestly believe that.

  I packed as much as I could in the two bags I could find and decided I’d come back for the rest later. Or leave it. I wasn’t sure yet. I grabbed a photo album of all Harper’s baby pictures and shoved it on top of my clothes.

  “No,” Adam pleaded, trying to grab it back, but I pulled the bag away from him.

  “Move,” I said. “I need to get this by the door so I can call Mason to come pick me up.”

  “Don’t do this,” he whispered. “Think about Harper. She deserves for us to make this work even though I screwed up. Please Lainey, do this for Harper if not for me.”

  “Don’t you dare bring our daughter into this,” I said angrily. “She has nothing to do with it and you didn’t think of her when you were off with Natalie. So don’t you dare try to bring her into this and force me to stay. My mind’s made up.”

  “I love you Lainey. I’m so sorry.” I ignored him and pushed past him, dropping my bags off near the door and going to the nursery to get Harper. He followed close behind.

  I stopped before entering the nursery and turned around, staring him straight in the eye. “Nolan kissed me before,” I informed him. “Before he told me about you and your secrets. I think you should know that I stopped him before it went anywhere. Not because I didn’t like it, but because I knew I needed to keep our relationship intact and going strong, and because I love you. So keep that in mind when you decide to start hating me for this.”

  He opened his mouth to reply, but I never heard what he said. I stepped into the nursery and closed the door behind me as I got our daughter ready to leave.

  Chapter 26

  “How was your shower?” Nolan asked, coming into the bedroom and sitting down beside me on the bed. I looked up at him and smiled.

  “Nice, thanks.”

  “No problem. Why are you looking through my old yearbooks?”

  It was later that night and I was back at Nolan’s apartment. He’d never driven away after he’d dropped me off earlier, as though he already knew exactly what I’d end up doing. I’d considered asking him to drop me off at Bella Vista but eventually changed my mind and just let him drive me back here. I felt safe here, somehow. It was where the truth had finally shown itself.

  I flipped to a page, and pointed at a picture. Natalie Cohen, it said underneath. “I know her,” I told him. “I’ve talked to her.”

  He took the book from me and studied it, frowning. “How? She left before you were even in high school.”

  “The grocery store back in August and then again a few weeks later when Hannah and I were getting lunch. She had the nerve to talk to me and comment on Harper when she was -”

  “Okay, you’re getting upset about it again,” Nolan said, taking the book and closing it before throwing it across the room. He put his arm around me and pulled me close. “It’s going to be okay Lainey, even if it doesn’t feel like it right now. You’re going to be okay.”

  “How am I going to be okay?” I demanded, brushing the tears that were escaping once again. “My boyfriend – no, my fiancé – cheated on me for two months with his ex-girlfriend and I had no idea about it. And not only was it his ex-girlfriend, but the girl that would have had his baby if she hadn’t gotten an abortion.”

  “I know, Lainey. It’s bad. Adam is an ass. But you can’t get yourself so worked up about it. Harper needs you and you can’t be there for her if you’re going to be a total wreck all the time.”

  “I’m going to be a wreck forever,” I predicted. “How am I ever going to get over this?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But you will. You’re stronger than you might think.”

  I snorted and the sound came across so loudly that Nolan began to laugh. I glared at him for a minute before I felt the anger crumple and I began to laugh, too.

  We lay back on the bed together and I placed my head on his chest. “I told him you kissed me,” I said after a few moments. “So don’t be surprised if he tries to kill you or something.”

  “Eh, I can take him,” Nolan said with a grin. He kissed the top of my head. “I should have punched him when I found out he cheated on you the first time. Maybe it would have prevented all the other times.”

  “Maybe,” I agreed, pulling away from him and sitting up. Harper was on the floor next to the bed, sitting on her blanket and playing with her octopus by lifting him in the air and dropping him to the ground. She laughed joyously every time he hit the ground and the sound of her laugh filled me with more love than I ever thought I could feel.

  “I wish I were that easily amused,” Nolan commented, sitting up next to me and grinning over at Harper.

  “Me too,” I agreed.

  “I’m going down the street to pick up some dinner, okay? Want anything in particular?”

  I shook my head. I was far from hungry. “Whatever you get is fine.”

  “Okay, I’ll be back in a little bit.” He kissed my temple and walked out of the bedroom. A few minutes later I heard the apartment door close. I sighed and slid onto the floor next to my daughter, running my hair over the little bit of dark hair that covered her head.

  “What
are we going to do, Harper Grace?” I asked her. “Do you have any suggestions?” She picked her octopus up again and handed it to me instead of throwing it down on the floor again. I studied the toy and smiled.

  “Thanks, but I’m not sure Otto over here is going to get us very far. We could try to get a submarine, but something tells me the $500 I have isn’t going to put a dent in how much that would cost.” I sighed.

  Leaving Adam seemed easy at the time. He’d betrayed me so there was no other choice. I hadn’t taken into consideration the fact that I was almost entirely dependent on him. While I stayed home and got my school work done and cared for Harper, he worked and brought in the money that paid for our food and everything Harper needed. He didn’t want me to put the rest of my savings into our joint bank account, so that was all I had left.

  If I were a spiteful person I could take my debit card to the nearest ATM and drain the account or close to it, but I wasn’t. I didn’t want anything more from Adam, anyway.

  I knew Nolan wouldn’t mind me staying there but I wasn’t sure how realistic that was. We weren’t together and we probably wouldn’t be. There was no way that would work out with everything else going on. I could go back to Bella Vista but that had been the original plan and there was probably a reason I’d ended up here instead. I didn’t want to go back there. I didn’t want to end up living with my dad again, even if Nora were gone and never coming back. I loved Mason and Hannah and even my dad, but I wasn’t over the events of last year. As much as I wanted to be completely moved on from all that, I wasn’t.

  I knew I could go to Julia and Ned and explain the situation and they’d probably ask Adam to move back into his old bedroom and let me have the guest house. They wouldn’t punish me for his mistakes and I knew they loved me like their own daughter and loved Harper even more. But I didn’t want to do that. Even if the guest house was home, I didn’t want to be that close to him again.

  Nolan returned half an hour later with a bag of takeout and a Pack N Play. I couldn’t help but laugh out loud when I saw him.

  “What did you get that for?”

  “Well, I was going to buy a crib,” he admitted with a grin. “But I explained that this was probably temporary and the girl told me to just get this since it serves a double purpose. I figured Harper would need a place to sleep at night.”

  “She could have just slept on the couch with me,” I reasoned.

  “No way and you’re not sleeping on the couch. I did it for the week I was with you, I’ll do it again.”

  “Nolan –”

  “Nope,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t want to hear it. You get the bed and I’ll set the Pack N Play up in there after dinner. End of story.”

  I fed Harper before sitting down to eat with Nolan. He’d gotten chicken fingers and fries, a pleasant surprise as I hadn’t eaten that in so long. We didn’t talk much as we ate sitting on the couch in front of the TV, but it was a comfortable silence. I was suddenly filled with gratitude that he’d come when he had, that he’d forced me to see what should have been right in front of my eyes.

  Nolan put the Pack N Play together as soon as we were done eating and I took Harper into the bathroom to give her a bath. She fussed about it at first but as soon as she saw me take out her blue rubber duck and place it in the bath with her, she calmed down. I think it was safe to assume blue was her favorite color.

  When she was all nice and clean I took her out and dried her off with her special towel that looked like an alligator, hood and all, and carried her back into the bedroom. I laid her down on the bed, covered her in baby powder and dressed her in a pair of pajamas. Her eyes began getting droopy as I combed her hair, so I put her right into her Pack N Play with Otto the octopus and said my goodnight to her. She was already sleeping by the time I reached the door.

  “Thanks for everything,” I said as I went to the couch, where Nolan was sitting and watching TV. “Here’s the money for the Pack N Play,” I said, handing him a few twenties. He looked at me and shook his head.

  “I don’t want your money, Lainey.”

  “But you bought it for her and you shouldn’t have. I should have thought to bring her something to sleep in, or –”

  “Or you’re human and you’ve had a bad day and you’re entitled to not be perfect. Just leave it here so she has it whenever she’s over.”

  “You plan on us being over a lot?” I asked, smiling. He grinned but avoided my eyes.

  “Well, you moved out of Adam’s place and I know you don’t want to live with your dad again, so let’s just say I assumed so.” He turned to me and his eyes softened. “Seriously though, you can stay here for as long as you want.”

  “Are you sure? I don’t want Harper and me cramping your style or anything,” I teased.

  He rolled his eyes. “Like I had any to begin with. I was such a tool in high school.”

  “Since you bought my daughter a place to sleep and brought me food, I won’t comment on that.”

  “Thanks,” he said, and I moved closer to him, resting my head on his shoulders. We sat like that for a while, until the movie got boring and I became all too aware of how close he was. I lifted my head slightly and he turned to me. I lifted my face closer to his and our lips met.

  For the second time that day, I was kissing Nolan Reeves. Except this time I wasn’t sure exactly who started it and I didn’t care. I allowed him to deepen the kiss and felt myself sit up straight before climbing into his lap.

  His arms wrapped around my waist and slid up my shirt, his fingers running circles on my bare skin. I broke the kiss off long enough to move to his neck, smooth and smelling faintly of aftershave. He moaned softly and pulled me closer and I became aware of how much I wanted this to go further.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, kissing my eyelids. “So perfect.” I wanted to tell him I wasn’t at all, tell him how wrong he was but I wouldn’t allow the mood to be ruined. I moved my lips back to his, running my fingers through his soft blonde hair. He moved me even closer.

  “Let’s go in the bedroom,” he suggested, but I shook my head. Harper was in there, fast asleep and it seemed wrong. It was here or nowhere and with the way I was feeling, it had to happen somewhere.

  “Okay,” he said, unaffected. He began kissing my neck and I closed my eyes, enjoying every moment. I felt truly desirable for the first time in forever, and that alone was amazing.

  I wondered if this was how Adam felt, being with Natalie for the first time in forever. I wondered if he thought about me at all and how much it would affect me. I wondered if he thought about Harper and how cheating on her mother could destroy her family, the one she deserved so much. I wondered why I was thinking about Adam during the one time I was really supposed to be thinking about Nolan.

  I kissed him again but whatever was there before had disappeared. I pulled away and slid off his lap, burying my face in my hands.

  “What’s wrong?” He asked. “Did I do something?”

  I shook my head. “No,” I whispered into my hands. “You didn’t do anything wrong at all. I just… I can’t do this.”

  “Why?” He asked and I could hear the disappointment in his voice. I felt even worse. Nolan didn’t deserve this. He’d been so amazing to me, today and every day since he’d been here. He’d kissed me because he wanted to and I could tell how much he meant it when he told me I was perfect. He deserved so much more than what I was able to give him.

  “Because I don’t know if I’m doing it because I have real feelings for you or because I want to get revenge on Adam.”

  Silence followed and I was scared to look up. Scared to see the look on his face, whether it was devastation or anger. I didn’t want to use Nolan. After everything he’d done for me, that wouldn’t be fair.

  “I understand,” he said finally and pulled me against him again. He kissed the top my head. “It’s okay, Lainey. I’m not mad. You should get to bed, though. Things might seem a little clearer in the mo
rning.”

  I nodded and stood up but didn’t make a move towards the bedroom. “Don’t sleep on the couch tonight,” I whispered.

  “Why?” He asked, looking up at me with confused eyes.

  “Sleep with me,” I said, and then blushed. “Literally. I don’t want to be alone tonight. Please.”

  Wordlessly Nolan stood up and took my hand, leading me into his bedroom.

  Chapter 27

  The rest of the week passed slowly. I thought about Adam and my decision to leave with every passing moment, unsure whether or not I made the right decision. How would it even be possible to tell?

  If Harper knew something was different, she wasn’t letting on. She slept well in her Pack N Play, probably content that it was located right next to my side of the bed. She experimented more with different baby foods, protested most of them, and continued to play on her blanket with all her toys.

  Adam still called every day and every day I ignored his calls and texts. I knew that sooner or later he was going to demand to see Harper and I knew I had no right to tell him he couldn’t. I wasn’t going to drag her into the middle of this. As much as Adam had hurt me, I wasn’t going to be Nora. Harper deserved to know her dad and despite his flaws, he had the potential to be a pretty good one.

  Nolan left Friday afternoon around three, after I’d gotten on his case once again about not telling his parents he was back in town. I’d overheard him on the phone earlier talking to his mom and acting as though he were still in California. I pointed out that the longer he hid the truth, the worse it was going to be for him. Christmas would be here in less than two weeks and he should spend at least part of it with his family. He must have known I was right because he flashed me that crooked grin of his and left.

  I didn’t know what was going on with us. Things had remained platonic since the first night I’d stayed. We slept in the same bed together every night but that felt more like an attempt at comfort than anything else. Sometimes he looked at me like he wanted to say something but wasn’t sure how. I didn’t even really understand what he felt for me, or why. He told me he thought I was amazing, but I didn’t feel that way and had no idea where he would come up with it. I’d done nothing but make bad decisions for the last year and a half.