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“What does that mean?”
“He had no problem breaking my heart, but he wouldn’t harm me physically, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
The man didn’t seem to believe me, especially since I was still stuck there staring at the piece of paper as if it might do physical damage.
“Listen, it was nice talking to you, but I really do have to get going.”
“Sure,” he said and took a step back. “Do you think maybe you’d want to grab some coffee or maybe dinner sometime?” He asked while staring at the note fluttering on my windshield.
“If you’re asking as friends, or so we can study together, then maybe.” I shrugged my shoulders to emphasize my point. “Anything else is off the table because I’m not ready to date again right now.”
“Yeah, um, okay, I get that.” He pointed at the paper as if it explained everything, then he walked away, and I watched him go. Part of me wondered what it would be like to be a normal college girl accepting dates with cute boys who wanted to do the same job as me when we finally grew up. We might end up like those teaching couples that managed to work in the same schools. The thought made me shudder, and not in a good way.
I pulled the paper out from under my wiper blade and got into my car before I flipped it open to read what it said.
That was a shit way to start trying to win your heart back. I’m man enough to admit that. What I was trying to get across was that I’d never do that to you again. Knowing what that mistake cost me, what it could have cost you, Nova you have to believe me when I say I would never do that again. I’m sorry if the note I sent with your lunch came across too playful, or... I don’t know… Too much in whatever way. It shouldn’t have sounded insincere, and it did. For that, I apologize.
I balled the letter up and threw it behind me in the backseat. He didn’t get it. His stupid letter said he’d never do that again, yet the last time I’d seen him he had Scout hanging all over him and he yelled at me for saying something bad about her. Honestly, while what I said had been mean, it had also been the truth, so I didn’t deserve his anger. Breakneck didn’t even realized he’d already proven to me that he would absolutely do it again.
A new lunch was delivered to me every day that I was on campus. A new note came with it, and while they weren’t as dumb as the first one, they all basically said the same thing.He’s sorry. He won’t do it again. What would it take for me to forgive him?
They all ended up in the garbage along with the food he sent. Somehow, I couldn’t accept any of it because it felt like I’d be giving in the moment I did. The only letter that gave me a moment’s pause was the one where he told me a crushing truth. That one made me cry.
Nova,
I know you’re tired of hearing from me this way, but it’s the only way I know to feel close to you and respect your request that I stay away.
I don’t want to talk about the mistake I made or why I did it because that shit doesn’t even make sense to me. There are things that seemed so black and white to me then that feel so different since you laid it all out for me in front of my whole club. They haven’t stopped harassing me about what a shit lover I am- by the way. I’ll take it, though. You were right. I held back so much of myself that I thought I had to find that part somewhere else. The truth is, I didn’t find it there because the missing part was that I needed to do those things with you – no one else. The bitch of it is that it took me going there to realize that shit – and by that time, you had already run from me and the hurt my confusion cost you.
I fucked up in every way by not talking to you and by holding myself back. If there was a way to go back and change it, I probably wouldn’t now. Only because I know you got your dad back out of the raw deal I left you with and that was important. Otherwise, I’d go back and do things so differently.
I found out a few days ago that I could have been a dad.
My heart dropped right down into the pit of my stomach, and I wasn’t sure if I could continue reading his letter. Had he gotten one of the club girls pregnant that day? It wasn’t like I looked to see if he used protection or not. I couldn’t bring myself to take in the smaller details of what I’d seen. He promised me that I was the only one he had ever gone without before, and I’d believed him. Then again, I’d believed a lot.
“Ugh!” I growled into the air, at the letter, at the man himself – if only he were there to hear my frustration with him. It was doing me no good to sit there wondering about everything, when I knew the letter would explain, still it was so hard to go back to those words.
I found out a few days ago that I could have been a dad.
You didn’t know the woman. She used to work for the club, but she left over a year ago. She turned up at Star and Bagger’s house and originally pointed the finger at him as the possible dad to her kid. Her kid… man, that’s something else. Her daughter is in the hospital. Cancer. That’s why she came looking for the father.
Tears dripped down my face as I read, thinking about the poor woman. It didn’t matter if she’d been a club girl, or that she didn’t know who her baby’s father was. She sucked up her pride and went looking, and I’m assuming that was to save her daughter’s life. My heart went out to her even as it ached with the knowledge that Breakneck could have been that child’s father.
Kip, Bagger, and I all took a test. Star took a test, too. Hers was different. She was just trying to see if she was a match to donate bone marrow. Mine and bagger’s tests were negative. Not the fucking father. I can’t tell you how thankful I was for so many reasons, but the main one being that I pictured you as the mother of my children. You are the only woman I’ve ever pictured in that position. Before you came along, I never even gave having kids of my own a single thought. Then I saw the way you were with Knox that first day and I couldn’t stop seeing you with a big round belly and a baby in your arms and I knew that it had to be me that gave that to you.
I wasn’t the father! Kip wasn’t either, but he is the kid’s brother, so when you see him again, be extra sweet like I know you can be. His family is hurting right now. We were all blown away that it was Tripp’s kid. He rarely ever goes there with the club girls, so it must have been a moment of weakness on his part, but he stepped right up. The man has been at the hospital with his daughter more than the clubhouse.
Anyway, I guess the whole point was that I still see you as the only mother to my children. The only way I’ll ever have them. I know how badly I fucked up, sweetness. I fucking know and feel the ache of your loss every day, then I have nothing but anger toward myself because you’d be here if I wasn’t such a fucking moron. I get it.
I hope one day you’ll believe me when I say that you are it for me. While this next part may make that sentiment fall flat, I need you to know – I’ll do better in the bedroom if you come back to me. Never felt so fucking low as when you laid everything bare for me in front of my brothers. I was a selfish cunt. I’m sorry.
All my love,
Breakneck.
It was the first letter that I didn’t throw away. Instead, I tucked it into my backpack, got up, and left campus. There was no way I could sit through another class after reading all that. My heart felt as though it had been ripped wide open. Not just because of Breakneck and everything that happened between us, not even the fact that he might have been a father to a little girl with cancer. It was shredded in part because the family I had been cultivating was going through something and I wasn’t there for them to lean on.
Neither of the Martin men had ever truly disappointed me. They’d both looked out for me, taken me in, and kept me safe. They treated me with respect and care. I was the brat who put Breakneck’s infidelity off on them like it was their own doing. That hadn’t been fair. Tripp had still treated me so kindly, and with such damn grace when I came to the clubhouse demanding to see my father. A man who he had taken because they thought he hurt me and hid me away. I felt like shit knowing that all of this was going on and he still tried to be there for me. I owed the Martin family some apologies of my own.
