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“So, is he my daddy?” McKenna asks bluntly, looking at me in the mirror. “He has the same color hair and eyes as me.” She looks at herself and then at me.
Katherine’s hand freezes mid braid and Bailey pops her head up. “McKenna, let's just get you ready to go.” Katherine replies, finishing the first braid. She puts the hair into a bun and moves on to the second side.
My heart is pounding against my chest watching them, they giggle and talk to each other as they go. They talk about today’s plans, and the excitement of feeding the ducks. When McKenna is all done, Katherine puts her on the floor, “Go grab your jacket.”
Bailey disappears with McKenna and I’m standing here with Katherine alone again. “Sorry, if she thinks it, she blurts it out.” Katherine cleans off the counter, putting everything back as she does. Her hair is already done and she’s ready for work. Although it’s ten in the morning, last I checked tattoo shops are open late. I guess, I really wouldn’t know as I don’t have one and the only time I had ever been in one was when we went together in Vegas.
“We’re ready to go.” Bailey shouts from the other room.
“Coming.” Katherine says, looking up at me. “Let’s go tell our daughter goodbye.” Katherine leads the way.
I follow her through her room, down the hall and out into the living room until we’re standing there and when I look down at McKenna, she’s the perfect blend of us. Her pink dress, black leather boots and jacket. Her mother’s space buns and my braids. The pink dress has little skulls on the skirt part and a skeleton hand with its fingers in the rock horns position. She has her mothers style and my favorite color. Everything about her is split down the middle. She has my dark eyes, but her mother’s round eye shape. My light hair, but her mother’s turned down lips. There is no doubt that she’s mine, even if I didn’t believe George, I couldn’t deny it staring at her.
Katherine squats down to be our
daughter's height and gives her a hug. “I love you to the moon and back.” She says.
“I love you as wide as the galaxy.” McKenna replies, hugging her mother. When the hug is over, McKenna walks over to me, grabs the edges of her skirt and gives me a little bow, “Mr. West, I’ll see you later.” McKenna says.
“I hope so sweet girl.” I give her a little bow back, respecting her. “Have fun with Bailey.”
“I always do!” She giggles, taking Bailey’s hand.
They leave and the second the door is closed, I turn to look at Katherine, who drops to the couch with a sigh. I move to her side and sit down next to her. I’m worried about what she plans for us. She’s always pushed me away, and I’m not sure I can handle it again.
“I hate you so much right now.” She says, looking at the wall. “You shouldn’t have shown up unannounced.”
“How else would I have shown up? I don’t have a way to get a hold of you, and you just left.” I turn to look at her, my head back on the couch as I slouch down further into the couch.
“I have a life here, I’m not uprooting her from everything she knows, everything I’ve built so you can go back to Yale. I know you have big plans to be a lawyer, your mother told me all about it when I ran into her at the market.” She crosses her arms over her chest, picking at her thumb with the nail of her first finger.
“Fuck all of that Kitty. I told you this is my life. You are my life. I’m not spending another day without you in it.”
“We can’t just jump into a happily ever after. That’s not how the real world works. I have responsibilities.”
“I have time Kitty, I’ve spent the last four and a half years wishing I was with you, trying to fill the void. I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“You don’t have anything here, no house, no job, nothing. You’d pack up your entire east coast life and move here? To Moses Lake?” She looks over at me, there’s a glisten in her eyes.
“I don’t need anything there anymore. I can find a job, a place, whatever. I’m not leaving.”
“This is all so messy. My daughter is still young, she-” She snaps her mouth closed. “There’s things you need to know if you’re going to stick around.”
“Like what?” I sit up, ready to listen to every word.
“Bailey, she’s basically a second mom to McKenna, that won’t stop. I can’t have you flip her life upside down all at once.”
“I don’t want that, I just want to be a part of her life. Your life.” I move off the couch, shuffling over until I’m between her legs, my elbows on the couch next to her thighs as I look up at her. “Kitty. I just want to be here, whatever that means to you. I’m not asking for forever, just for now. Let me love you, let me show you that you’re worth loving.” I repeat similar words that I did back when I got her to let me in before.
“I thought I knew what love was, but it’s just a thing in the fairy tales. I love McKenna ferociously, but I’m not sure I have the capacity to do this again.” The words coming out of her mouth are shaky at best, like she’s trying to convince herself that she doesn’t love me still. My hands skate down her thighs until I hit the hem of her skirt and when my palms touch skin, I move them back up, my heart beating quickly as I watch her reaction.
I want to love her, remind her of the beautiful soul that resides in these black clothes. “You’ve loved me since that summer, even if you told yourself you didn’t. I reminded you of that at the reunion and you ran. You’re scared to let me in because you’re afraid I’ll leave you after I see the darkness inside you.” I kiss her thigh, “I’ve loved the darkness inside you for so long, I'm not sure I could ever love anyone else. You are my dark queen, the one I will spend every second of the rest of my life reminding just how fucking important you are to me.” I kiss further up her thigh as my thumbs move the skirt out of the way. “The dark empress that will always rule my mind, body, and soul. Everything I have is yours.” I kiss the other thigh, “Everything I am begins and ends with you.”
She moans as I lick her flesh, nipping and biting as I find my way further north. “West.” My name is a whispered moan on her lips as she laces her fingers into my hair. “We can’t. Not right now.” She pulls my head up, looking down at me.
I sit up and pull her skirt down, “Why won’t you ever let me in?” I feel anger deep down, but I won’t show her that I’m pissed. Not when I’m working so hard to get her back.
“You say you’ve loved me all these years, that you know the darkness that resides inside my head, but Westley, you’ve only seen the summer girl, the one that was trying to have fun, the one that let you take away the pain Knox caused. But you broke me worse than Knox ever could.” She wipes away a tear that has fallen down her cheek. “You gave me hope that life could be okay again. You told me you loved me, that you could never love another and when it came down to it, you didn’t fight for me. You just left when I pushed you away, went to school.” she lets out a breathe, “You changed your fucking number to get away from me.”
