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16
Amber
Itried to keep it together as long as I could, but as soon as he was gone, I started hyperventilating. Why had that been so hard? It felt like my heart had just been ripped out of my chest.
I was just calming down when Gemma called me back. The people that I had met with the day before wanted me back to go over some of the basics. If I hadn’t had such a horrible meeting with Frank, I probably would have insisted that I needed a little bit of time in between, but I didn't need it now. I didn't really need anything but time and space away from Frank. Being close to him was too complicated. Hampton was looking less and less desirable by the moment. I had actually wanted to hear his excuses why he didn't tell me, why he would do such a thing, but I knew that whatever he told me I wouldn't believe. If he could lie to me about having a daughter, obviously, he would lie to me about anything else. I think the saddest part was that I knew I would never be able to trust him again. Getting out of Hampton and putting some distance between us sounded like a really good idea. I told Gemma to find me a flight. I wanted to get back as soon as she could manage.
“You weren't there very long.”
“No, but I was here long enough.”
“Are you going to tell me what happened?”
“Maybe one day. I'm honestly still trying to figure it out myself.”
I felt like an idiot. It was bad enough to fall for him when I was fifteen, believing all of his lies about how we were going to be together forever.
But how could I be so stupid at my age? I should have known better, and it just stung a little bit more.
The next morning,I had a flight at about nine o'clock, so I went to the local diner to grab something to eat before I left. It was still nostalgic, and even though it brought back memories of Frank, I was pretty sure that everything was going to. The whole town reminded me of Frank.
I was sitting in the booth, putting cream in my coffee and trying not to think of the man that would not stop running through my mind. All in all, I was on my way to recovery, especially knowing that I was going to be out of Hampton very shortly. Then, I wouldn't have to worry about any of it.
It appeared, though, that Hampton was not done with me. My humiliation was not complete yet, and I once again got to see from a distance his daughter, or at least the one that I thought was his daughter.
She came in with the same older woman, and this time I was really paying attention to them, because I thought I knew who they were. This was his daughter and his wife.
The wife, right off, did not look like somebody that Frank would be with, or at least I couldn’t see him with someone like her. Maybe I thought that because she was so much different than me. She was older, maybe like ten or fifteen years, and not to be mean to the woman, but she seemed a little dumpy. It wasn't somebody that I would have imagined him being with. He had always liked a bit more pizzazz, and this one wasn’t cutting it.
The little girl, though, she looked more like the mom than she looked like Frank. Honestly to me, she didn't look like him at all. It made me wonder if I had the right people, until I heard her talk, and then I became even more confused. It was obviously the same little girl and it had to be his daughter, but she was calling the woman Maria, instead of mom. That may be a bit more normal for teenagers, but a little girl that age would most likely call her mother just that, mother. It felt off to me and before I could figure out anything else, they had picked up a to-go order and were leaving. Where was it they were going?
I was watching them go and the waitress must have noticed, because she said something about how it was so sad.
“Sad? What do you mean?”
“Well, I don't mean to gossip...”
That's how she started the sentence and I knew that she was definitely going to follow it up with a whole lot of gossip. Usually, I didn't want to hear it. I hadn't been in town in years, but this gossip I needed to hear. What I was going to learn from it, though, I had no idea.
“Well, it's just sad because the little girl's mother died when she was first born and the father that should have took her in, decided that he didn't want to. It was a big to-do here in town, of course. He wanted to put the child up for adoption, and his friend Frank stepped in. Frank did not want to see that little girl go to foster care, you know. He was only about nineteen at the time when he took her. He has done such a good job with her.”
I felt like my brain was going to explode. Literally. Everything that I thought I knew was wrong and I just felt horrible about it. I had been so mean to Frank, and here he was, just as sweet as I knew he was going to be. He had always been a good person. Always helped people. Why had it been so easy to think so ill of him?
I felt like there was a life lesson in there somewhere.
“So, that's not even his daughter? What about that woman?”
“No, he's not even related to her. He was just friends with the mom and dad. I'm not really sure what happened to the dad. Matt was from here, maybe you remember him, but as soon as Frank took Caroline, Matt just took off, and we haven't seen him since.”
“And the woman?”
“I think she's the maid or something like that. Maybe she's the nanny. I don't know. Frank's got way too much money, so he probably has one of each. She's just the woman that takes care of her and takes her to school while Frank is at work. Sometimes she watches Caroline overnight, but not that often. He's been single for years. Everyone thinks that he's been single since he took on that little girl. Nobody would blame him. It sure looks like he has his hands full.”
I was literally speechless. That's not exactly something that I'm known for, being quiet and all, but what was I supposed to say to that? The waitress didn't expect me to say anything. She didn't know the inner turmoil that was going through me at the moment. All she knew was that I needed some more coffee and she brought me some. How could a complete stranger named Gail completely change everything in my life with just a few words?
As I was leaving now, I was debating if I should call Gemma back and tell her that I didn't need the plane ticket. I needed to go speak to Frank, that was a given. How long it was going to take and what was going to come out of that conversation, was still up in the air. It wasn't something that I could just rush over there and do in ten minutes and then leave again for ten years. Because it was Frank and because we had this history together, and because I had been such an asshole, I knew that I was going to have to come up with a good plan. A really good plan.
I was sittingat my grandfather’s house, trying to come up with a plan, when I heard a knock at the door. First, I jumped up because I thought that it was Frank. He was the one person I needed to talk to. I needed to explain to him how I could have been so wrong and then apologize profusely and hope that he forgave me. It wasn't exactly something that I wanted to do, but I knew it was something that I needed to do.
