AllFreeNovel
Share Us
FIVE
Seth
Walking away from Bailey was the biggest mistake I had ever made in my entire life. Sure, at first, I had been bitter—I was bitter about the pregnancy. I hated myself for putting her in this predicament, and I hated even more that I was going to be a dad.
But once the shock of it all wore off, my eyes opened. And fuck had it taken a long damn time for that shock to fucking wear off.
And I realized I’d done damage—damage I wasn’t sure if I could repair.
Bailey was dying inside. I could see it in her eyes. That spark—that life—that had been in her eyes when we were together was gone. She wasn’t there.
She was a shell of the girl I knew before, and knowing I was the one that did that to her fucking killed me inside.
I hated that I was the one person that destroyed her in the end. I’d never wanted to do this to her.
She was fucked up in her own way; I knew that. I’d witnessed it with my own eyes, but goddammit, she hadn’t deserved me walking away. She hadn’t deserved being stuck with a baby all by herself.
It took two to tango, and I was determined to make up for my mistakes.
I was determined to be there for her and our baby.
I was determined to put her back together again. I needed her to be back together again. It was critical. She had breathed so much life into me. She’d given me a reason to fight, to exist.
And now, I’d ripped all those reasons away from her.
When I’d texted Trent to ask if it was okay to talk to Bailey, I was surprised that he didn’t threaten to beat my ass again. Instead, he’d told me as long as she agreed, I could talk to her.
That told me this shit with Bailey was even worse than I’d originally thought. Her brother was super overprotective. If Bailey had been doing okay, he’d have kicked my ass, not fucking agreed in a heartbeat.
And to see her with Brayden? God, that shit fucked me up inside. I didn’t know why she was with that douche. He had a holier-than-thou fucking attitude because he’d gone on to college, got a full ride because of his grades and his football scholarship.
Fuck him. Not all of us were meant to go on and become fucking doctors.
I wanted to follow in our oldest brother’s footsteps—join the military and get the fuck out of this town. But now, all of that was getting screwed up. I wasn’t sure if I could leave Bailey and our baby alone to go do that.
It would be selfish. She would be stuck at home, being a mom, still struggling, while I was out chasing my dreams, basically living my best fucking life.
I wouldn’t do that to her. I’d done enough damage as it was.
Damage that I was now trying to figure out how to fucking fix—starting with this talk with her.
I just prayed that I wasn’t too fucking late.
* * *
Bailey was sittingon the front porch when I pulled up to the house. Jacob was sitting beside her. He’d basically become her shadow after moving here, and honestly, I was thankful she had someone like him to protect her from jackasses like me and the rest of the punk ass mother fuckers we went to school with.
I was doing my best to clear up rumors, but it seemed the more I did, the worse it got.
And fucking Paisley. Don’t even get me started on that fucking bitch. I’d wanted to wring her fucking neck the other day when I’d heard some of the shit she’d said to Bailey in that bathroom.
She was the one at the heart of all this bullshit. Somehow, she got word that I was the father of Bailey’s kid, and since Bailey and I weren’t talking, she assumed Bailey was lying. God forbid I did anything wrong; for some reason, no one believed I could.
Hence all the bullying and hateful shit Bailey was hearing on a daily fucking basis. I’d even noticed she had deleted her social media. And since I was such a fucking creep, I even went as far as making a new account to see if she had just blocked me, but nope. She completely deleted every social media account she had.
I hated high school, and I hated even more that her senior year had been turned into such a shit show.
And I was basically completely to fucking blame for it.
