Lightning was right. Sara had lied to me. This kid was mine. There was no mistaking it at all. He was a spitting image.
"Now, Garret… Get out of this house." Daniel sounded panicked now, and the squeak of the front door's hinges rode over the tension I felt.
"What the hell's going on?" I heard without turning, and I knew it was Andrew.
"She fucking lied to me…" I mumbled, hands clenching into fists. I couldn't believe what I was seeing with my own eyes.
I had confessed my feelings to her and committed to being with her, and Sara had lied to me.
"Garret…" Andrew said, and I heard his voice softening.
I turned on him like my enemy, ready to throw fists if it came to it, but he had an apologetic expression for a split second. He had to have seen the pain in my eyes because it was so overwhelming, there was no way I could hide it.
"Garret… where are you going?" Daniel asked, trying to grab my arm, but I jerked him off.
"Get out of my way," I snarled, now stomping back through the front door toward my bike.
"Garret, leave her alone. You hear me?" Andrew shouted. "Stay away from Sara."
But the rumble of my bike drowned him out as I peeled out of their driveway and dropped the clutch. My pulse was racing,heart hammering into my ribs hard, as I rode toward the hospital to find her and demand answers.
Why would she do this to me? How could she not tell me I had a son? And he was so perfect too, so little. This would've changed everything for me. She had to have known that. But she left town and hid it, and having been back here for the past few weeks she still said nothing. I had no words for what I was feeling.
I got to the hospital in record time, leaving my bike in a no parking lane so I could get inside faster. I stalked to the information desk to ask for Peter's room number, but before the nurse on duty got it for me, the elevator doors pinged and Sara shuffled off the elevator with her head down and tissues in her hand from crying.
For the first time since she came home I didn’t care that she was sad, or that her father was dying. I was angry enough to hurt her, which was something I never thought I'd ever feel about her.
She moved toward the exits, and I rushed over to stand in her path, blocking her way out. When her head popped up and her eyes met mine, she looked shocked for a second, then sadness washed over her. She blinked away a few tears then reached for me.
"Garret, I?—"
I grabbed her hands, pushing them away as I glared at her. She clearly didn't know that I knew a thing yet, and I wasn’t here to comfort her.
"You lied to me?"
"What?" she said, as it started to slowly dawn on her what I was talking about.
"I have a kid?" I clenched and unclenched my fists to avoid grabbing her. I wanted to shake the living daylights out of her and make her understand how badly I was hurting. My heart was shattered.
"Garret, I?—"
"You lied!" I snarled, gripping both her biceps. "You lied about having my kid and you ran off to St. Louis and kept him a secret. Why? How could you do that to me, Sara!"
"Excuse me," I heard but I ignored the male voice.
"Tell me why you did that!"
"Garret, please. You’re hurting me," she whimpered but I didn’t let go. "I was scared. You pushed me away. I knew how you felt and you’re right. It would’ve killed Mom and Dad and?—"
"And you cared more about what your Mom and Dad would say instead than how I would feel about this?"
"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to let go of her." I heard that same male voice and flicked a glance up at the hospital security guard. "Now."
"Garret, please let me explain." Sara was sobbing as I let go of her arms, but I got what I'd come here for. It was true. That kid was mine, and she had lied and then covered it up.
"Ma'am are you okay?" was the last thing I heard as I pushed out the doors into the stiff cold breeze of fall settling over Missouri.
I had a kid I never knew about, with a woman I thought I loved. And I had no words to express how that made me feel.
