Fuck. That’s a lie.
I fucking care too much.
“Bash!” Opal calls out when I slam open the door.
I don’t look back.
There are too many clouds littering the sky to see the stars tonight. I stand on the fire escape in the night breeze waiting for them to clear, the cool air pebbling my bare arms.
The stars never show up.
Waiting for Noah to come home from work makes me restless. He usually calls when he’s running late, but he never did this time. He’s been distant ever since Sal’s a week ago.
At eight, my phone dings with an incoming text, and reading it shatters me.
Noah: Working late. Staying at my place so I don’t wake Addy.
He never uses Addison as an excuse, and I hate that he’s doing it now. There is no hiding the six-foot wedge between us. Noah is bothered by Sebastian, but he won’t talk to me about it and it kills me. Especially after he wanted me to talk to Bash about Addy.
Giving up on the stars, I step back inside. Hugging myself, I walk into Addy’s room, watching her body twist under the covers.
She can’t understand what happened last week, even when Kennedy and I tried to explain. She knew about Bash her whole life but seeing him in person threw her for a loop.
Ever since Sal’s, she draws pictures of Bash in all her school art projects. It’s a silent hope that he’ll finally be around—a hope that breaks me apart when she asks me to put the pictures on the fridge with ones of only her and I.
Her teacher even voiced her concern, calling me when Addy told the school that her father is here to stay. I never told her that, because I don’t want her building any expectations up just to see them crumble when he leaves after his break ends.
“Mommy?” Addy murmurs sleepily.
I creep further into her room, shadowed by darkness. Sitting on the edge of her mattress, I comb my fingers through her thick hair.
“Can’t sleep?”
“I dreamt of Daddy.”
“You did?”
She nods, yawning. She stretches her little arms out and the comforter drops from her chest. I pull it up and tuck it under her, kissing her cheek.
“But then he turned into Noah,” she adds under her breath.
My eyes widen. Taking a steady breath, I say, “It’s been a tough week for you. I’m sorry that you had to go through this. I’ve always wanted to tell you more about your dad, but …”
“It makes you sad.”
Man, little kids are perceptive.
“A little,” I admit. “I just don’t want you to be sad.”
“I’m not. Daddy is back.”
I try to smile but fail. “Baby, I don’t know how long he’ll be in town. He’s a very busy man, you know.”
“He’s a prince!”
“Yes,” I agree. “He’s a very busy prince working to entertain kingdoms all around the world. His time here in Clinton is limited.”
“Will he like me?”
“Oh, baby, he’ll love you.”
She beams through her tired eyes.
“Where is Noah?” she asks me.
My throat bobs. “Working.”
“Still?”
I play with her blanket. “He’ll be home tomorrow, okay? Why don’t you get some sleep?”
“Does he like Daddy?”
I wince. “Um, yeah. We all went to school together once upon a time.”
She blinks. “Were you friends?”
“Yes.”
“Are you still friends?”
“Noah, Bash, and me?”
She nods.
“Noah is my very best friend.”
“Not Daddy?”
I tug on my bottom lip with my teeth. “It’s complicated. I suppose Daddy can’t be my best friend, because that’s Noah.”
“What about Aunt Ken?”
“She’s my best girl friend,” I reason.
She nods like that makes sense. Thank God.
“I have a best friend,” she tells me.
“Who is that?”
She giggles. “You, silly.”
A big smile spreads on my lips. “You’re always going to be my little monkey. Even when you’re a teenager and you get embarrassed over me.”
She gasps. “I won’t!”
I grin. “You will. Trust me.”
She shakes her head.
I brush her hair behind her ear and lean forward to kiss her forehead. “It’s bedtime, Monkey. I’ll make you pancakes tomorrow, okay?”
“Waffles!”
I deadpan. “Pancakes with chocolate chips.”
She thinks about it, her nose scrunching. “I like waffles.”
“I know.” I laugh. “But Noah makes the best waffles, and he may not be able to make them tomorrow.”
He may not be home at all.
Noah is part of me. Without him here it feels like I’m missing a vital organ, like I can’t function properly.
“Noah is the bestest cook.”
“That’s not a word, sweetheart.”
“But it’s true.”
I couldn’t disagree with her. “Well I make some mean pancakes, don’t I?”
She gasps. “No, you don’t. Your pancakes are nice, Mommy!”
I bite my lip to suppress my laughter. She’s always so literal, and I love her more for it. She’s wise beyond her six years, but also so much like other kids her age.
“All right, sweets,” I say, standing up. “I will make nice chocolate chip pancakes tomorrow morning before school. Maybe I’ll see if Noah can make waffles for dinner.”
She smiles. “Okay, Mommy.”
“I love you.”
“Love you more,” she whispers tiredly. I go to leave her room, but she calls out for me. “I love my Daddies too, Mommy.”
My heart expands, filling my chest, as I watch my little girl promptly fall back asleep,
Daddies.
Plural.
***
Everything is different now. The numbness of it all has taken over my body. Kennedy’s attempt to distract Addy while I work only stalled the inevitable in-depth conversation I’d have to have with her now that she knows Bash is in town.
When Noah walks through the café to get to the apartment, he barely looks my way. His tired gaze points downward at the floor as he passes me. He doesn’t greet me like usual, and my chest tightens when Kennedy comes downstairs with a timid look on her face.
She doesn’t have to tell me that she knows something is wrong between Noah and me. Our tension thickens the atmosphere, suffocating everyone within a ten mile radius.
When Roy steps in to take over closing shift, I hang up my apron and prepare myself for anything. Noah is always level headed but watching everything unravel in front of Bash destroyed him, and whatever the reason is, it kept him at work late just so he could avoid discussion.
He wants to give me space to deal with Addy on my terms, but I just want him.
I walk inside the apartment tentatively, struck by his form sitting at the kitchen table.
He still won’t look at me. Noah always looks at me, even when I wish he wouldn’t. Like when I’m sick and my eyes are red and puffy, with my nose is dripping snot, and my hair is a tangled mess. Or when I’m on my period and bloated, crying, and stuffing my face with chocolate and potato chips while blubbering to some sappy romance movie. Noah loves looking at me in every state. He says seeing me undone makes him love me more, because he sees my imperfections.
He insists that imperfections are what make people beautiful. I must be gorgeous then.
But now he won’t meet my eyes. He just sits at the table with a World’s Best Dad coffee mug in his hands that Addy picked out for him, staring at the words like they’re in another language.
“Noah?”
He blinks. “I think we should talk.”
I gulp. The echo of my heart thumping in my ribcage fills the silence between us. Anybody who starts a sentence like that neve
r has anything good to say.
I slowly slide into the chair across from him, still wrapped in the sweater I usually shed when I’m home, with my keys gripped tight in my palm.
After a long moment, he sighs and palms his scruffy jaw. “Opal …”
“You’re b-breaking up with me,” I blurt, blinking back tears.
He slowly looks up, but his eyes still don’t see me. Rather, it’s like the dark orbs see right through me instead. “No. I’m not. It isn’t like that.”
Tears stick to my lashes, obscuring my image of him. I can tell that he’s tense. His posture, which is usually pristine, is sloppy and defeated.
“After what happened, I got thinking about us. And I love us—love you. Please don’t think that I don’t. But now that Sebastian knows about Addison, he’ll need time to process. And when he does, he’ll want to come around.”
If he even wants that, I think silently.
Bash had a haunted expression on his face when he stared between Addy and me at Sal’s. When she called me Mommy, I watched a small piece of him shrivel up and die. It was all in those hazel eyes, where he always holds his emotions.
“The point is, you guys have a lot to figure out. Addy needs to get adjusted to her father being in her life, and you should focus on her. She’ll need you. She’ll need both of you.”
“Noah, you’re as much of a father to her as Bash is. We’ve talked about this before. Please don’t—”
“He loves you,” he cuts me off abruptly. He rakes a hand through his unruly hair. “Dammit, Opal, he always has. And he’s going to fall in love with that little girl. And who knows? Maybe you’ll find what you lost when you see that happen.”
I swallow. “W-what?”
He stares me straight in the eye. “There’s no shame in forgiving him. The look in his eyes at Sal’s? The anger? The shock? The astonishment? When he saw Addison, it was like watching everything click into place. And that involves you. You guys can be a family.”
Kennedy’s words echo in my head, dangling in front of me like bait to a fish. He has been worrying about what I’ll do when Bash becomes part of my life.
I hiccup. “But we’re a family.”
“You should figure out if that’s what you truly want,” is all he says back.
Something inside of me snaps, and the wall holding back my anger succumbs, breaking into a million tiny pieces. “Are you kidding me, Noah? I’m trying to tell you that you’re what I want, and you’re pushing me away! How many times do I have to tell you that you’re my family? That you’re Addy’s dad? What do I have to do to show you?”
He closes his eyes. “Your eyes.”
My … what?
“When Bash saw Addy, when he reacted, your eyes weren’t just full of fear. When he realized who she was and walked away, you looked crushed. Like he was breaking up with you all over and leaving for good.”
I open my mouth to argue, but snap it closed. He’s not wrong. Seeing him walk away after that did make me feel something. I just don’t know what.
Noah stands, his calves pushing back the chair. “I need you to know that you have a choice. Right now, Addy and Bash need you. And, maybe, you’ll realize that you need them just as much. I’m not saying we break up, Opal. I’m just insisting that you take some time to make sure you know who it is you want in your life. Because there’s no doubt in my mind that he’ll fight for you tooth and nail ten times over now that he knows about his daughter.”
My hands shake so bad that I have to tuck them under my thighs. Taking a ragged breath, I process what’s happening.
A break. He’s asking for space.
Space for me, not him.
I swallow past the growing lump in my throat. “It’ll be you.”
“I think I should go talk to Addy. Tell her that I’m spending some time at my old place for a while.”
“So that’s it?” I whisper defeatedly, staring at the chip in the table that he accidently put there when he was trying to move it. “You’re going to leave?”
“For you, Opal.”
It isn’t that I don’t understand why he’s doing this. And despite believing that there’s nothing in me that could ever love Bash the way I did before, a pestering piece of my heart knows that’s not true, which makes this hurt even more.
I don’t want to hurt Noah or love Bash.
But I’m doing both.
So, I don’t argue this time. There’s no pleading, no begging him to reconsider. He deserves so much better than a girl who can’t figure out her own heart.
He’s always deserved better than me.
He leaves the kitchen for Addison’s room, the sound of her door creaking open is the only sound in the apartment. I count my heartbeats. My breaths. Neither feels like they’re working right now—like in an instant I’m dead, waiting to be brought back to life.
But there’s nobody to revive me this time.
Forcing myself out of the stupor, I quietly tip-toe toward Addy’s room to hear her and Noah’s soft-spoken voices linger in the hall. Pressing my back against the wall, I listen to their conversation knowing it’ll be the last one.
I don’t hear the beginning of their talk, but I can tell she knows he’s leaving.
“Noah?” Addy whispers in a weak voice.
“Yeah, Dimples?”
There’s a pause.
“Does Daddy love Mommy?”
I inhale sharply just as Noah exhales. We still work that way—breathing as one like we’re connected by an invisible force. “Yeah, kid. I think your Dad loves your Mom very much.”
I close my eyes, holding my breath.
“Does he love me?”
“Of course. Never doubt that.”
“But he wasn’t around.”
My heart shatters. She thinks Bash left because he didn’t love her? My hand goes to my chest, and I’m fighting back tears that want to flood my cheeks. Breathing suddenly becomes the hardest thing to do, and I know I deserve this suffocation.
I’m two seconds away from bolting in and wrapping my arms around her when Noah speaks again.
“Hey,” he comforts in a quiet tone. “Your Dad loves you so much. Want to know why? Because you’re beautiful on the inside and out, just like your mom. And the reasons he hasn’t been in your life has nothing to do with you.”
I bite back a choked sob, blinking back tears.
“Do you love Mommy?”
“More than you could ever know, Addy.”
She whimpers, “So why you goin’?”
My knees buckle beneath me as I crumble to the floor, back sliding pitifully down the wall until my butt hits the carpet. Burying my tear-stained face in my knees to hide my own guilt, I listen to Noah’s answer, knowing it’ll be everything Addison needs to hear.
What I need to hear.
“It’s just what’s best for us right now.”
“But why? If you love each other, than you should stay. We’re family. Right, Noah? We’re family?”
“Always, Addison. That will never change.”
“Promise?”
“Pinky swear,” he answers.
They’re silent for a long moment, and I wonder what’s happening. Are their fingers linked? Is she crying? Is he smiling in comfort with wavering lips? I bet Noah is rubbing her back or brushing her hair. He knows it calms her down.
When he whispers that he has to go, she tries stopping him. His voice cracks when he tells her to lay down and try resting.
It breaks me. Shatters me. Destroys me.
The tears don’t stop from cascading down my cheeks, causing my body to wrack with the force of my silent sobs. And when he steps out, closes Addy’s door behind him, and sees me as a messy heap on the floor, he stares.
But he doesn’t stop.
Doesn’t reach down.
Doesn’t try to comfort me.
No. Instead, he walks away, because I’m no longer his responsibility anymore.
There are thirty-eight and a ha
lf white tiles that make up my bedroom ceiling. Fourteen of them have dust specks on them that need to be cleaned off. Ten of them are stained with dirt or mold, and at least three need to be replaced. The rest seem spotless, but I’ll probably paint them anyway.
They’re all I can stare at, all I can count, all I can do to stop thinking about everything.
When my new sheets feel too scratchy against my naked back, I trudge into the kitchen, down a glass of water, and pull a hoodie over my head right before walking outside.
My feet guide me to the park, which is calling me like a siren at sea to sit down and stare at the stars like old times.
I used to tell the stars my secrets, but tonight they’re whispering a few of their own, taunting me with what they’ve known this entire time.
“I have a daughter,” I tell them.
They whisper, “We know.”
The little dipper shines above me, and I watch the three little dots twinkling like they normally do. Everything continues around me like my world hasn’t completely stopped. The sun still sets, the moon rises, and the stars still shine.
It’s their way of telling me that life goes on.
Pressing the heels of my palms into my eyes, I force myself to sit up and look around the dark park. My eyes catch the bench where I first met my little girl.
She held my hand that day.
I can still feel the way her tiny fingers tried holding onto my big one—how they couldn’t completely wrap around them, so she grasped just my pinky.
My throat tightens, and I suddenly need something to drink. Despite being dressed in sweatpants, a hoodie, and sneakers, I walk across town to Marty’s bar.
When I walk in, I take note of the few people scattered across the room. It’s only a Wednesday night, so it’s not hopping like the weekend is. Only drunks, introverts, or heartbreaks littered bars mid-week. I guess I encompassed two of the three.
Marty follows me with his steel-eyed gaze. He’s still the same tall, pudgy, no-bullshit man as he was years ago. The whole band gives him credit for our start since he let us play here when we first began performing. He’d said it was a good thing people were too drunk to care, because we weren’t very good.
The Choices We Make (Relentless Book 4) Page 12