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She shrugs. “Helena told me it didn’t matter, that mom didn’t matter.” She smiles a small smile. “She got angry and said all that matters is I have a family who loves me, and Mom isn’t cool enough to join our family, because she has a giant stick up her ass.”
Helena. Of course she did.
Our family.
Our family.
My stomach turns as my head pounds. I think I might just throw up. I stand and move towards my baby girl, hugging her tight and placing a kiss to her head. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
Ceecee straightens and states, “I can’t imagine you with her.” Unknowingly stabbing me in the heart, she mutters, “She’s not like Helena, and I sort of thought she would be. I thought she’d be cool, and funny, and loving.” Her eyes narrow in thought, likely pulling a memory from this morning. “She was just…cold.”
I rub absently at the pang in my chest. Ceecee looks up at me, grinning. “You should’ve seen Helena yell at Mom. She wasn’t even scared.”
I’ll bet she wasn’t.
I clear my throat. “I think maybe we should do Coney Island next week, don’t you think? We’ve already had a lot of excitement for one day. Maybe we can just sit around, watch movies, and eat junk today, yeah?”
She reaches up and takes my hand. “I’d like that, Daddy.” Stroking her hair, I smile down at her before moving away. As I walk out of her room, she calls out, “Can you call Helena to come too?”
Somehow, I think she’ll kindly decline. Not that I’d blame her. I’m an asshole. Rather than telling Ceecee that, I call back, “I’ll call her.” And call her, I do.
But she doesn’t answer.
Not any of the eighteen times I call.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Helena
It takes me over an hour of walking for me to realize I have no idea where I am. Luckily, my cell, which rings in my pocket every minute or so, is in my pocket. I call for a cab and wait patiently for it, sitting on the stone fence of a fancy house. A woman comes outside the property, pretending to get the mail, but I see her eyes me good.
A wave of irritation flows through me, but I squash it. Standing from my sitting position, I turn to the woman and smile. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sit there. My feet are a little sore.”
The woman walks over to me. She looks to be in her fifties, with kind eyes. “That’s okay. You sit if you need to, doll.”
My throat thickens and I choke out, “I’ve been walking a long time.”
My phone chirps in my pocket. I pull it out.
Max calling.
I stare down at the display, devastated.
The woman steps closer. “Are you okay, sweetie?”
The simple question causes my emotions to erupt. With my phone vibrating in my hand, tears flooding my vision, I sob out, “I’m pretty sure my boyfriend just broke up with me.”
The woman makes a knowing sound in her throat before taking a seat next to me on the fence. “Ah. Young love.” She pats my hand, her light pink fingernails flawless. “I’m sure it’ll work out. If not, there are plenty of other fish in the sea.”
Forcing down another sob, I sniffle, “Not like Max, there isn’t.” I look up at her. “He’s it. My sugar rush.”
My phone chirps again and again, and the woman nods down at the cell in my hands. “Seems like someone’s trying awful hard to get ahold of you.”
My voice lowered to a hush, I tell her, “I don’t feel much like talking to him right now.”
She sits by me in silence, her mere presence a pillar of support I hadn’t know I needed, this woman I don’t even know. “You know, when we were younger, my Stan had a knack for saying things in anger. Things he didn’t mean, but things that hurt me regardless.”
I use my sleeve to wipe at my face, and ask, “What did you do?”
