Nirvana.
Football.
If I were his.
No. No. No.
I can’t breathe.
He’s not your secret anymore.
– Ev
As soon as I left the hospital that night, I went straight to Gage’s apartment. I found her. But I also found my son, and I am wondering how, with all the electronic medical records, he couldn’t have known.
He is a fucking boy genius when it comes to all things tech, and he never found her? Not through her name change, not through Rune’s birth records. Nothing.
I have a fucking son.
A son.
Happiness and anger collide in my chest, making me feel like a storm is brewing. A tornado of regret, joy, fear, longing, loss. So many emotions swirl through my body, and I don’t know how to process them all.
But the most present one? The one taking over right now?
Anger.
How fucking could she?
She knew I wanted a family. She knew I wanted her babies. And I have one.
A son.
Is the pregnancy what spooked her? I told her I wanted a family. She should have told me. It would have changed everything. Changed it all for the better.
But she didn’t. She kept him a secret. Our Rune.
And fuck, is he perfect.
He is so smart, so goofy, so full of life and light and…her. He is so much like her. He just doused my life in color. His color. His beauty. His joy. He has just given me a reason to breathe again. To live again. He is my everything. All at once, he is mine.
And she kept him from me. I have lost seven fucking years of his life. His first steps, his first words, teaching him to ride a bike, to throw a ball. I missed his birth, hearing his first cry, seeing his eyes open for the first time.
I’ve missed eight Christmases that could have been filled with Disney movies and hot cocoa, ice skating, and pretending to be Santa and leaving boot prints on our floor leading from the chimney to the tree.
I have missed seven birthdays that could have been filled with pointy party hats, watching the eagerness on his face as he tore apart the wrapping paper, the smile on his face when I made him his favorite birthday breakfast, marking his height on the door frame and seeing how much he had grown in the last year.
Seven fucking years of my son’s life. Gone. Because of her.
Eight years I spent loving Leo. Eight years I thought if I could find her, I could fix whatever happened. Eight years, my world was Leo.And in a moment, it’s all blown away by a sweet boy named Rune, because now? Now he is my world. My light. My future.
I finally make it to Gage’s apartment and bang on the door.
He pulls it open, rubbing at his eyes. “What the fuck, man?”
I barge in, anger and confusion rolling off me in a palpable stream. “How could you not find her?”
“What?” He is still 90% asleep.
