Page 31 of Flawed Revenge

Confused as she was, there was one thing she was sure about. She wouldn't survive losing Leo all over again. In the last ten years, she’d never been able to give her heart to anyone. Partly because she had unresolved feelings for Leo, she could admit that now, but part of it was the fear of being hurt and abandoned again. When pressured by family to move on and try to meet someone new, she’d gone on the odd date, but it never went past two or three before the guy got the point that she wasn't interested.

“But you are interested in Leo. That’s the problem. Too interested,” she murmured to herself as she reached her bedroom.

“Did you say something, Mom?” Ariella’s door opened, and her daughter’s head peeped out.

“Nothing important, sweetie-pie, was just talking to myself.” This wasn't a conversation she could have with her nine-year-old child.

Or was it?

Maybe she needed to know where Ariella stood. What her daughter wanted from Leo. The little girl probably wanted what every other little girl wanted, her parents together, but given what Ariella had been through, she was more mature than most kids her age. Even if she did just want what every other kid wanted, then Kate knew she needed to hear it. For the last decade they’d been a team, the two of them against the world. Despite the fact that her daughter was just a child, she still knew this was a decision she couldn’t make for both of them without a discussion first.

The last thing she wanted was for her daughter to wind up resenting her.

“How did you sleep?” she asked, reaching for Ariella to pull her in for a hug.

“Great. I love it out here, it’s so quiet and peaceful,” Ariella replied.

“It is,” she agreed. “Why don’t you go get dressed, then I’ll come and do your hair. How about braids?”

“I love braids,” Ariella exclaimed, her eyes lighting up.

“I know you do.” And she hated that they didn't have time for her to do them more often. Even before Ariella got sick, life as a single mom had been non-stop busy, and she hadn't always had the time to do the things she’d wanted to do. Then, after Ariella started showing symptoms, the constant medical appointments and treatments meant that the time they had to do fun things disappeared until it was almost non-existent.

Leaving Ariella to get dressed, Kate went into her own room. There was a pang in her heart as she pulled the T-shirt over her head. She didn't want to take it off. Hadn't really wanted to leave Leo’s bed either. Sleeping in his arms was every bit as good as she remembered, and if she wasn't such a coward, they could have come down to see Ariella together and started their day as a little family.

When Leo woke up to find the bed empty, he would probably be disappointed, angry too. That wasn't what she wanted. Despite hating him for a decade, she wasn't after revenge, didn't want to hurt him in retaliation, and leaving was just self-preservation.

Throwing on jeans and a sweater, Kate eyed the T-shirt, already missing the connection she felt to Leo when she wore it. With half a mind to pull her sweater back off, put the T-shirt on, then hide it under the sweater so no one knew, the urge was almost too strong. If she was too scared to seek that comfort from the real thing, this was at least something.

In the end, she decided she was being silly, so she folded up the T-shirt and left it ready to put back on at bedtime. Tonight, she couldn’t go searching for Leo. It was blurring the lines, confusing her, making her emotions stronger than her rational mind, and she had to make a sensible decision because both her heart and her daughter’s were on the line.

“I'm ready,” Ariella called out when she walked into the room, and she found her daughter sitting on the corner of the bed, wearing a dress and a pair of tights, the hairbrush in her hand.

“One or two braids today?” Kate asked as she stood behind her daughter, took the brush, and ran it through Ariella’s long blonde locks.

“One, and can we put in flowers so I look like Rapunzel?”

“We most definitely can.” As she started preparing the first strands of hair to braid, Kate gathered her courage. This wasn't going to be an easy conversation, for her at least, but it had to be done. “So, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Is something wrong?” Ariella asked, and she hated that a problem was the first thing her daughter thought, not that Kate could blame her.

“Nothing is wrong. I just wanted to ask you about your dad.”

“Is he going to be sticking around?” Ariella asked, and there was a rare tremor of insecurity in her voice. The little girl had handled her illness like a champ, always remaining positive, but she was still a sick child forced to confront her own mortality at an age where she should be focused just on having fun, learning about the world, growing, and finding out who she was.

“Yes. I believe that he is.” That was true. She had zero doubt that regardless of whether or not she and Leo ever got back together, he would find a way to be there for their daughter.

“Did he want to stay away from us?” Like everything else she faced in her life, Ariella had handled having an absentee father with that same positive attitude, not letting it bother her even as she missed having a dad.

Nothing would ever make her tell her daughter the whole truth. Ariella didn't need to know what his fear had pushed Leo to demand, but this she could give her. “No, sweetie, he didn't want to be away from us. He felt like he didn't have a choice, that he was doing the right thing for us.”

“If I get better, is he going to live with us?”

“I don’t know,” Kate answered honestly. “Is that what you want?”

Ariella hesitated for a moment. “I do want Dad to live with us, but only if it makes you happy.”

“You don’t ever have to choose between us,” she reminded her daughter. She absolutely did not want Ariella to feel like she had to pick a side in a grown-up issue.