Page 68 of Saints & Sailors

Maybe it had always been there, but hearing his words and recollecting my feelings, I came to find that I carried with me abandonment issues. It was a cycle that was following me since before I was born. First Scott, then Kevin, then my mother, and then my friends.

A part of me wondered if they all saw something in me, something too ugly to stick around and deal with, as if Scott had sensed it from the moment he touched my mother’s belly and knew to back out before it was too late.

Fuck.

I ran an arm over my eyes to wipe them clean.

No.

I wasn’t the problem. They were. People always leave.

Scott attempted to stand, but I shook my head. His eyes were glassy, as if holding back his own sorrow. “I was just a kid⁠—”

“You were an adult. You were twenty years old, and you just left her.” My voice broke as I stood up for more than just myself, for my mother too. “You let him tear you down and turn you into a coward, and you left us.”

Scott hung his head. “I fucked up. My whole life I was hearing that I was wrong and I was messing up, and when Maddie got pregnant and he said those words, I just didn’t think I was good enough to make it work. Barrington was right, I was barely getting by on my own, and I couldn’t raise a baby on my pay. I was insecure and scared, and I ran. It was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made, and I’m so sorry, Saylor.”

Suddenly the room felt too small.

I stood up and Scott did the same, calculating my movement.

“I needed you and you weren’t there,” I let out.

Scott crossed over to me and against my thrashing, he took me into his arms.

I didn’t break down and cry, but I felt the pain deep in my heart ease up just a little.

“Don’t you think for a moment that I left because of you, or that I didn’t love you or care. I was weak, and I messed up a really good thing,” he swore to me. “I didn’t want to leave and I didn’t want to stay and prove Barrington right. I wrote Maddie this letter, telling her I was sorry for everything, and that I was going back home. I left my number for her to call me, and she did, on April twenty-second when you were born. She told me how much you weighed and how well you were doing, and that she was going to be okay, and that was it.”

We broke apart and as angry as I felt about him leaving, I felt sympathy for him all the same.

“My parents were disappointed in me, my sister too. I could see it in their eyes, but no one beat me up like I did, and still do, over what happened. If I could go back and change my mind, I would, in a heartbeat,” Scott swore.

But it was impossible.

That’s just not how time worked.

“How did she contact you after all these years?” I asked.

“I lived with my parents for a while, and when they moved, I got their house. When I moved here, I transferred our old landline because that’s all my parents used for the longest time. The number’s been the same since forever,” Scott said. “Maddie called me and told me what happened, and as messed up as it sounds, I was happy. To me, this was a second chance, and I think we both needed it. You sounded like you were going down a bad path, and I saw myself in you. I just want to help, I want to be here, as long as you’ll have me. I want to be the dad I should’ve been from the start.”

“Now,” I said. “I mean, would you have ever contacted me without my getting arrested?”

“There’s a part of me that thinks I honestly would’ve left you alone, not wanting to ruin your happiness or life by intruding. Then there’s another part that would’ve tracked you down, so you could scream at me, yell, tell me you hated me, but just so you knew that I was here and gave a damn.”

I snorted. He “gave” a damn.

While there was no denying that Scott was presently in my life, fighting back against all my anger and rebellion, there was also no ignoring his absence for the greater part of it as well.

Maybe it was too little, too late.

Though, we were alike in all the ways I’d never known. He was very much a part of me and who I was, before I even knew myself.

Perhaps this was destined.

Cameron came to mind, with her bright attitude and talk about second chances. Scott was using his to be a better man and father to me, Dreux was being a boy scout, and then there was me with my second chance in Meadow Grove.

“I don’t know if I’ll stay after April,” I spoke up. I lifted my chin at him, pulling myself back together. “Until then, we should start over.”