by Nella Tyler
I glanced at her, but I got no response in return, so I just continued randomly. “I remember the first few weeks after the deployment. They were probably the worst of my life. Probably because I realized I had made a huge mistake in leaving you behind, but also because I realized that none of this would bring Braden back.
“I guess a small part of me thought that if I sacrificed my life here and became a soldier like Braden, then I would have him back in some capacity. He would be…alive again. I guess over time, I did find myself understanding him a little more, but that doesn’t really bring him back. It just makes me miss him more sometimes. I know I’m probably rambling, and I don’t make any sense at the moment—”
“Turn here,” Lauren said in a curt voice.
“What?”
“Turn here,” she repeated again.
I went where she directed me and then she pointed to a gray building to the right. “This is it,” she said. “You can stop here.”
I pulled the car to a halt and turned to look at her. “Lauren, wait,” I said quickly before she could open her door. “Please.”
“What?” she asked.
“I know this isn’t easy for you,” I said imploringly. “I know I hurt you, but I’m trying to tell you how much I regretted the decision to leave you behind. You deserved better than that. You were there for me when I needed you, but I wasn’t there for you.”
“You’re right,” Lauren said her eyes flashing at me dangerously. “You are completely right. You did leave me behind. You did make a mistake, and all for what? Your brother was gone, Chase, and instead of clinging to me and letting me help you, you pushed me away and you ended up losing me too.
“And now you’ve done with your soul-searching quest and you’re back home, you expect me to drop my life and run into your arms again? How is that fair? How is that right? You have no idea what I’ve been through. You have no idea about my life now. You made your choice and you left me alone so…fuck you very much.”
With that, she got out of the car, slammed the door, and walked towards the apartment building without a backward glance. I wanted to get out and follow her, but I knew she was too upset to deal with me. In truth, I wasn’t sure I knew what to say to her in the first place. I was starting to think that I was fighting a losing battle with her. I hadn’t anticipated the strength of her anger or the depth of her hurt. I was starting to believe she might never forgive me.
I thought back to the moment when the sergeant had offered me the special placement at camp Pendleton. When he had first suggested it, I hadn’t even been thinking of re-enlisting. But now, with my future bleak and uncertain, it didn’t seem like such a terrible idea.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Lauren
I lay in bed trying not to think about the previous night. My body was still raw, my muscles were sore, and my head still spun, and yet despite all that, I felt more alive than ever. It was the kind of tiredness that made you more aware of your body.
I heard my mother walk past my room towards the kitchen and I got out of bed and walked outside in my pajamas. “Hi, Mom,” I said as I followed her into the kitchen.
“You’re up early,” she said turning to me.
“Aren’t I always?”
“Yes, but you don’t usually have such late nights,” she replied with a smile. “I take it you had a good time?”
I faltered a little and her eyebrows rose a notch. I sighed deeply and sat down at the circular table that sat in the center of the kitchen. “I had…an interesting time,” I said at last.
“This sounds like a conversation that requires some coffee,” she said, brushing her hand across my head like she used to when I was a child. “Can I pour you a mug?”
“Yes please,” I nodded. “Black.”
She got together two cups of black coffee and then joined me at the table. “All right,” she said as she slid one mug across the table towards me. “What happened? Did you see Chase?”
“Oh, I saw Chase,” I nodded.
“And?”
I groaned. “I’d forgotten how freaking good looking he is,” I sighed. “I mean seriously…it’s not fair that he should be that hot.”
Mom smiled. “Did you speak to him?”
“I…yes,” I nodded as I took a sip of coffee. It was strong and bitter, and it warmed me up inside.
“And, how did that go?”
“It went…okay, I suppose,” I replied. “I mean, I said what I had to say.”
“Which was?”
“That I wasn’t about to let him walk back into my life as and when he pleased,” I said. “I made it very clear that I wanted nothing to do with him.”
“And how did he take that?”
“Pretty well, I think…considering I slept with him,” I said through gritted teeth.
“What?” She almost choked on her coffee as she looked up at me in surprise. “You slept with him?”
I groaned again and put my head down on the table. “I know, I know,” I sighed. “That was probably not the best decision.” When I got no response from her, I raised my head to see her reaction. “Mom?”
“Yes?”
“It was a bad decision, right?”
She smiled at me and shook her head. “I don’t know, Lauren.”
“You don’t know?” I said incredulously.
“He obviously wants you back.”
“Well… yes, but—”
“Then that’s good news.”
“It is not!” I said firmly. “Just because he wants me back does not mean he gets me back. He made his decision.”
“Which he obviously regrets.”
“He didn’t do anything to correct it,” I pointed out.
“Actually, he did.”
“What?” I asked wrinkling my eyebrows at her.
“Think about it reasonably, Lauren,” Mom said gently. “He was emotional when he made his decision to enlist. Once he was committed, he couldn’t get out of it; he had to stick with the military for four years, so it wasn’t as though he could get on a plane and come back home.”
“What’s your point?” I asked narrowing my eyes at her.
“My point is that he did the only thing he could do under the circumstances,” she continued. “He wrote to you. How many letters do you have in that box of yours?”
“Fifty-one,” I replied slowly. I sighed deeply. “I think I’m going to head out for a run,” I said. “That’ll help me clear my head. Hopefully by the end of it, I’ll have a better perspective.”
Mom nodded just as Cole burst through his room door and came charging at us. “Mama!” he screamed. “Grandma!”
“Morning, little monster,” I said grabbing him and laying a kiss on top of his head. “Slept well?” Cole nodded vigorously as I pulled him onto my lap.
“What would you two like for breakfast?” Mom asked, looking at both of us.
“Mama said I could have pancakes today,” Cole piped up immediately.
“Oh that’s right,” I nodded, having completely forgotten about my promise from the night before.
Mom got up and moved to the fridge. “I don’t think we have enough ingredients to make more pancake batter.”
“Aw,” Cole said as the corners of his mouth drooped a little.
“I’ll tell you what,” Mom suggested. “Why don’t I nip down to the grocery store with Cole and get what we need? That way you can squeeze in your run before breakfast, Lauren.”
“That’s a good idea,” I nodded, painfully in need of a run.
“I wanna go with Mama,” Cole said quickly. “I wanna run too.”
I had been running at the same grounds for ten years. It was a peaceful little place whose track wound through lush gardens that had a Japanese sensibility about them. I loved running there, and it felt like I had made most of my decisions on that track. After Cole was born, I hadn’t wanted to stop my running, so I had taken him with me.
I would stick him in his stroller and the
n I would run, pushing the stroller along in front of me. Quite apart from being an excellent workout for my arms and legs, considering the extra strength it required to push the stroller, Cole ended up loving the runs. He would sit giggling in his stroller with the wind in his face, cooing with abandon.
As he’d gotten a little older, I had managed to squeeze in a few solitary runs on my own, but every so often, he would insist on coming with me and I would have to get his “big boy” stroller out. My pace was considerably slower when I ran with Cole now, but it was still an excellent work out.
“Please, Mama,” Cole said, fixing those big brown eyes on me. “Can I come?”
I smiled. “Yes, you can come,” I conceded. “Why don’t we both go and change out of our pajamas?”
Reluctant as he was to change out of his comfy pajamas, he did as he was told and I moved into my room. I put on my sweats and my favorite Nike sports bra, and then I tied my hair up into a tight ponytail and got my shoes on. When I walked back outside, Cole was jumping around the living room in his little khaki shorts and a white t-shirt.
“Ready, Freddy?” I asked.
“Yup!” Cole said, running at me.
I got his stroller and the three of us left the apartment together. We said goodbye to Mom at the corner as she turned in the direction of the grocery store and Cole and I headed towards the garden park. Back when I was in college and I had lived with Chase, I had needed to drive to the garden park for my runs. But now that I lived with Mom, it was an easy ten-minute walk that helped warm me up.
Once we got there, I helped Cole into his stroller. On any other occasion, he would have thrown a fit at the indignity of being pushed around in a stroller like he was a baby. But somehow, when it came to running at the garden park, he was always happy to get in it.
“Ready, Freddy?” I asked again.
“Yes, Mama,” he nodded vigorously as I strapped him in and got behind the stroller.
Soon, I was running on the perfectly paved track with my ponytail flying behind us. I could hear the sound of Cole’s sporadic giggling every time we headed down a slope or took a sharp bend. Every now and then he would yell, “Yay, Mama,” as though he were cheering me on.
I had just finished one full circle, which was approximately one mile long, when I slowed my speed and brought the stroller to a stop. I was breathing heavily, but I felt good. My body had loosened up a little and my muscles were a lot less sore. Cole handed me the water bottle I had kept beside him.
“Thanks, hon,” I said as I took a long swig of water. “Do you want some?”
Cole nodded so I bent down to give him a drink. I was putting away the bottle when I noticed someone jogging towards us. I glanced up and my breath caught as I realized it was Chase.
“Lauren,” he smiled. “Funny running into you here.”
My eyes narrowed. He knew I came here to run most Saturdays. This was no coincidence; Chase had come here hoping to see me. I wanted to kick myself for not thinking of that possibility and for bringing Cole along today of all days.
Chase’s eyes flitted to Cole immediately and his smile faltered a little, but he managed to keep it in place. “Who’s this little guy?”
“I—”
“My name is Cole,” my son piped up loudly.
I glanced down at Cole and then back towards Chase, who was looking at me in shock. “This is…Cole?” he said as though he were trying to understand why I had claimed my boyfriend was a four-year-old kid.
“We’ve got to go,” I said quickly as I turned Cole’s stroller around so that Chase could no longer see him.
“Lauren?” Chase’s tone was insistent and slightly shell shocked. “Who’s the kid?”
He started walking after us and panic gripped my throat. I pulled the stroller to a stop and turned it sideways so that I could see Cole sitting there looking at me with confusion. I gave him a big reassuring smile before I grabbed Chase by the arm and pulled him a few feet away so that Cole wouldn’t overhear us speaking.
“Lauren, what the hell is going on?” Chase demanded, glancing at Cole every few seconds.
“I lied to you last night, okay?” I said in a fierce whisper. “Cole is obviously not my boyfriend. I don’t have a boyfriend. At least not an exclusive one.”
“I…” Chase said. “Then who’s the kid?”
I glanced at Cole as the panic rose. There was no way I could get away with not answering the question, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him the truth either. Not with Cole sitting just a few feet away. “I babysit him,” I blurted out instinctively.
“You’re his baby-sitter?” Chase asked in confusion.
“Yes,” I said. “And I have to get him home now.”
With that, I turned, got a hold of the stroller, and started pushing hard so I could get away from Chase as quickly as possible.
“Who was that man, Mama?” Cole asked after a moment.
“He was…just someone I used to know, sweetheart,” I replied with my head in a whir of emotion.
“Is he your friend?”
“Well…he used to be,” I said.
“But he’s not anymore?”
“I guess not,” I said desperately thinking of a way to change the subject. “Are you ready for pancakes?” I crowed. “I’ll bet Grandma’s got them on the pan right now.”
“Yup,” Cole nodded as he clapped his hands together.
“Good,” I said. “Me, too.”
My head was spinning, and I couldn’t stop myself from reliving the encounter with Chase in the garden park. I had lied to him about Cole, but I had been lucky that Cole hadn’t called me Mama within Chase’s earshot. I didn’t know if what I had just done was right or wrong. But what I did know for sure was that nothing was going to be simple from there on out.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chase
I could only stand there in shock as I watched Lauren leave, pushing the stroller as she went. I stared at her until she turned the corner and disappeared from sight. I still couldn’t bring myself to move. After a moment, I walked over to one of the benches by the side of the track and sat down.
I didn’t know why, but I had the distinct feeling Lauren had been lying to me about something. Maybe it was the way she had said she didn’t have a boyfriend. I tried to remember her exact words. What was it that she had said? “I don’t have a boyfriend. At least not an exclusive one.”
That struck me as an odd statement. Either you had a boyfriend or you didn’t. Was it possible that she did actually have someone special in her life? Or perhaps he wasn’t special; maybe he was just someone she slept with. My stomach turned as I pictured the thought of Lauren sleeping with anyone else. It felt wrong, horrible, and painful.
“Something’s not right,” I said to myself.
I went over that moment again in my head. She had been kneeling beside the stroller as I had approached. I remembered the look on her face as she had been tending to the child in the stroller. She had looked at him in a way that could only be described as maternal. Was it possible that she had lied about being the child’s babysitter? What if she was his mother?
My head spun and a thousand different possibilities came to mind. I started to remember little things that were starting to make more sense under the circumstances. I remembered how the whole group had been excited to see Lauren yesterday because she had been so MIA in the past few years. I remembered the fire in her eyes as she’d stared me down after I’d driven her home as she said, “You’ve had no idea what I’ve been through.”
The possibility of the child being hers was starting to seem more and more plausible. I just couldn’t understand why she would lie about it if that were the case. I tried to figure out how old the boy looked…maybe three or four. Which meant that she had gotten pregnant with him soon after I’d left. Did that mean she rebounded with some jerk that was looking to take advantage of her vulnerability? Or was she cheating on me? Nothing really made sense.
I turned and walked back to the car. I didn’t even think about it, I just started driving home as though I would find my answers there. I found my parents in the garden. Mom was sitting on the patio with a pitcher of lemonade, and Dad was tending to the flowerbeds with his pruning shears in hand.
“Mom, Dad,” I said as I walked onto the porch.
“There you are,” Mom said. “We just finished breakfast.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said quickly. “I’m not hungry.”
“Are you all right, son?” dad asked as he straightened himself up to look at me. “You look a little pale.”
“Lauren has a baby,” I blurted out before I could phrase the sentence better.
“What?” Mom said as she set down her glass of lemonade. Dad walked around the flowerbeds and came up the steps of the porch.
“Well…I don’t really know,” I said, shaking my head and trying to get my words straight. “I mean…I just saw her at the garden park and she had a child with her.”
“Did you speak to her?” Dad asked.
“For like two seconds,” I replied. “But she seemed in a heck of a hurry to get out of there the moment she saw me. It was almost like she was trying to hide something.”
“It may not necessarily mean what you think it does,” he said practically.
“I know that,” I said. “I just…I guess I was surprised to see her with a child.”
“Was it a boy or a girl?” Mom asked.
“A boy,” I said. “He looked like he was about three or four years old. I couldn’t tell for sure.”
“Did you ask her who he was?” she asked.
“Yes,” I nodded. “She told me that she was his babysitter.”
“Babysitter?” she repeated.
“It doesn’t make sense to me,” I said shaking my head. “Lauren has a good job. Why would she babysit on the side?”
“She always wanted to start a gym of her own,” Dad pointed out. “Maybe it’s more costly than she first anticipated.”
“But why would she choose babysitting as a side job?” I asked. “There are better paying ones out there.”