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Well done, you fucking asshole.
I’ve managed to make an innocent girl cry. Awesome.
“Aden?” Casey says through the phone.
“I’m going to sign off for a while. I need to get my head screwed on straight,” I answer in the phone, hanging up without saying goodbye.
I watch as the girl leaves my room, her back straight and head held high. Then I throw my phone across the room.
Fucking hell.
three
hope
I can feel tears stinging at the back of my eyes. I ignore it, going back to the office and locking the door. I unclip the baby monitor from my belt loop and take the door that leads to the private quarters. It contains a small kitchen and living area, two bedrooms—though one is more nursery size—and a bathroom. Not plush, but it works. The only sad part is that this is part of the motel that I haven’t really done renovations in. I tried to concentrate on what had to be done first. I fixed Jack’s room, but the rest of it… is sad. I peek in Jack’s room and he’s still sound asleep, just like I left him. He’s wearing his Paw Patrol pajamas and his blonde hair shines bright from the hall light, even in the dark room.
He’s my angel and the sole reason I manage to keep going. He turned two last month, and he’s growing so fast. I have so much guilt inside, because I’m not spending time with him like I should. Even before this motel debacle, I barely got time with him. I had to work two jobs just to keep food on the table. I’ve missed so much. At least moving here, I won’t be away from him as much. I won’t have to put him in daycare—which is yet another reason I need this motel to take off…and I need to find a way to put up with the asshole in room seven.
I walk over to Jack’s bedside, and kiss him gently on the forehead, letting my fingers brush through his blonde hair. Jack’s father might have been the mistake of my life, but Jack is everything. He deserves a better mother, and he’s never seen his father. He kind of struck out on the parent lottery. His father was a drifter coming through town with a cocky smile and a vintage 1965 Mustang. I thought he was something special—or at least, I thought I might have been special to him. I was about as wrong as a girl could get on that score. He stayed around long enough to knock me up, then split town the minute he found out I was pregnant—after calling me every name in the book for trying to trap him. We used condoms, but the asshole blamed me because one broke. It had more to do with him being a cheap ass and his condoms being old, but it doesn’t matter.
I got Jack, and I’ll kill myself to make sure he’s happy.
Still… it hurts that someone I gave myself to didn’t care enough to stick around. Not for me… and not for my son. Maybe it’s that fact that makes my guest’s words hurt so deeply—deeper than they should. Whatever it is, the words hurt.
Take out has become a way of life, it’s hard to cook or even worry about being healthy when you don’t look up. I put on weight when I was pregnant and, honestly, that weight just stayed on and I’ve added to it lately. I’m a stress eater and if there’s one thing my life has had in it… it’s stress. He wasn’t wrong about other things either. I honestly can’t remember if I brushed my hair today. To be fair, I wasn’t expecting to see anyone other than my son, but still…
As soon as I get done justifying the man’s words, I get mad at myself—well… madder. There’s nothing wrong with me, and who the hell is this guy anyway? He doesn’t look exactly hot himself. He looks like he’s been on a week-long bender to be honest. There’s no way I should let his opinion matter.
And it doesn’t.
I repeat those three words as I go back into my bedroom. I lay down on my bed and I let a few of the tears finally escape. His words might not matter, but the fact that my life feels as if it is running off the rails and I can’t get it to stop even long enough to catch my breath… does.
So I cry, but I vow this will be the last time I give in to the tears.
The very last time.
four
aden
I planned to apologize. Really—I did. I was dreading it. In my experience when you apologize to a woman you show them weakness, and with weakness they smell blood. It never ends well. Still, I shouldn’t have said what I did about her. I was going to the office to say I’m sorry, see if there was literature about where I can find a place with take-out food and leave—quickly.
