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“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I reassure him in a rush as that weight starts to lift off my shoulders once more. My mother is going to kill me, of course, but I can’t live her life for her. She doesn’t need me to anyway, she’s living it herself. Now, I need to live my own. “This just isn’t for me. I can’t do this.”
With those words clinging to the air behind me, I stalk out of the building with a strange self confidence that comes from nowhere. I hold my head up high and walk knowing that I didn’t mess things up this time but that it’s my choice to go, and that while I might not know where I’m going to go next, I will be making my own decision. I will be taking control of things and doing what I want for a change.
That is freeing.Chapter 17 – TimI feel weird as I sit outside of another law building waiting for Kayla to come out of her job interview, but that’s because this time I haven’t been asked to. I’m more of a stalker type than a hero this time around but I know that I can’t let Kayla go. That’s the one thing I am certain of. I must talk to her first. I have to.
“You need to know that she’s doing the right thing,” I remind myself as I rub my palms down my trousers. “You have to make sure that Kayla is happy before moving on and going wherever.”
Yes, that’s sounds reasonable, it’s what any descent guy would do, so I don’t know why I’m all twisted up in knots about it, panicking before I have even seen her. I mean, if the worst happens and Kayla tells me to get out of her life for good then at least I will know that I tried. I gave it my all and failed. But at least I won’t have what if regrets. At least I will be safe in the knowledge that I couldn’t have done more for her.
Bang, bang, bang. Bang, bang, bang.
I jump as there is a loud rapping on my car window, dragging my eyes from the building to find a very unpleasant face glaring at me. One that I have only gotten to know today but that I already don’t like.
“Oh God,” I murmur to myself as I un clip my seat belt. “More shit from her mother.”
I slide out of the car. I don’t want to, but I have to. I can already tell this isn’t going to end well and that she won’t just leave me alone if I ignore her. I need to shut this shit down before anything else happens.
“What’s happening?” I ask her coldly, trying to let her know that I’m not taking her shit.
“Why are you here?” she snaps back. “Didn’t I make it clear to you that I don’t want you hanging around my daughter? I told you to leave, didn’t I? You’re a low life and Kayla now realizes that she deserves more.”
“I don’t need to hear that from you.” I shake my head hard. “I need to hear it from her.”
She narrows her eyes and snarls at me. I can practically see steam burning out of his ears because she’s so angry at me but that only makes me hold my head up higher, to be more determined. I won’t be taken down.
“Kayla doesn’t even want to look at you anymore, much less speak to you. She has told me what she wants and it’s for you to get out of her life forever. She wants to get work in this law firm, and you are just in the way of that. I nearly got distracted by a man like you and it nearly knocked me off my path. I won’t let the same happen to my daughter. There is a reason that her father isn’t in her life, and it’s because he’s just like you.”
Wow. Now I am utterly gob smacked. I don’t know what to say to that. I wasn’t expecting to get caught up in a comparison with Kayla’s father. I don’t even think that she knows him, she hasn’t ever mentioned him. Clearly there is a history here and there isn’t much that I can argue with when it comes to that. Not when I don’t know the full story and I can’t possibly even begin to understand. This goes way deeper than me and Kayla.
“Er, right.” I bite down on my bottom lip. “I see. Well, I do just want Kayla to be happy, that’s all…”
“Then go.” She waves her hand as she screams this word, sounding like a mad woman. People are staring at us from all around, but she really doesn’t care. Perhaps she assumes that making a scene will make me leave quicker, but I’m not going to be embarrassed easily. People here don’t even know me. “Get out of here because that’s what she wants. She won’t want to walk out from that job interview to see you. She’s going to be excited and thinking about her new career, not wanting to consider her childish blip in the past with you. She’s becoming an adult now, being the woman that she has always been destined to be. Don’t get in the way of that.”
