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15
Three
I stareout the window in a daze as Addy drives us back to my parents’ house. The look on Wyatt’s face is all I can focus on. At first, he was just as shocked to see me as I was to see him. He recovered much quicker than I did before disappearing back into the bar.
Anger. Plain and simple.
He has every right to be angry with me, to hold onto that anger until he’s ready to let it go. That doesn’t mean it didn’t shock me to see it firsthand, that it didn’t hurt when his eyes met mine and I felt his anger.
I can still feel it.
Dinner is over by the time we arrive, my parents giving me grief for missing it the second we walk through the door. Either they didn’t notice or didn’t care that I was distraught. There was no point in attempting to hide it. This is all their fault to begin with.
Lola and my parents are watching a movie in the family room when Addy joins me on the back porch, two wine glasses in one hand and a bottle of white wine in the other.
“So what’s the plan now?” Addy asks, pouring each of us a glass, barely stopping short of the brim.
“I don’t know. I know where to find him I guess. I mean, I could go over there in the morning and just tell him everything, but I’m not sure I want to do that. I’m not sure he’ll listen to me. Judging by the look on his face a few hours ago, he’s as unprepared for this as I am.”
Sipping my wine, I wait for Addy to bestow her wisdom upon me. She’s always been good at giving advice that’s been worth its weight in gold. I haven’t always listened, but I’ve learned now I should have.
Since meeting her, I’ve tried to move on from Wyatt exactly three times.
The first time, she told me he was only after sex. I thought, if that was the case, fine. I knew he wasn’t going to get anywhere with me anytime soon. Lola was barely a year old at the time, and I wasn’t ready to jump into bed with anyone yet.
He lasted a few weeks before he realized that I wasn’t going to put out.
The guy after him seemed genuine. We dated for two months and things were going good. It was getting to a point where I thought maybe I would be comfortable introducing him to Lola. Addy warned me that the second I mentioned I had a kid he would run. Well, to his credit, he didn’t run right away. He stayed for dinner and sat through two hours of cartoons before leaving. I didn’t hear from him again after that night, though.
The last guy I dated, only a few months ago, was a real winner. He had a good job, treated me with respected and wasn’t pressuring me to have sex with him. He claimed he wanted to wait until he was married. That making love was a sacred bond that should only be shared between two people who have committed themselves to one another.
The night I came home and told Addy what he had said, she burst out laughing.
She gave me two options for how things would turn out. Either he would admit to being homosexual after we got married or he would dump me when he found out that I had a child out of wedlock.
I tried to protect Lola from strangers. Unless I was certain about them I never talked about her or introduced her to anyone. As far as she knew, the world only included Addy, Carmen, my parents and her. I was fine with that.
The night I brought Kevin home to meet Lola, I saw the fear in his eyes. Addy was right, on both accounts. We ended up sitting on my couch talking most of the night. His parent’s beliefs were the ones he shared with me. They’d been pressuring him to find someone to marry and he was having a hard time finding a way to tell them he wasn’t interested in girls.
The nice thing about Kevin is that we’ve remained friends since then. If he needs someone to show up to dinner with his parents, he calls, and I help him out. We play the happy couple and that allows him the freedom to look for someone who actually interests him. When we talked last week, he told me about the new guy he met. There was a level of excitement in his voice that I hadn’t heard before.
I’m happy for him, but every time I look at him, I also see my own failure. I tried to move on, to move past Wyatt. Circumstances wouldn’t allow that to happen, and I can’t help but wonder if my head and heart were behind it in some way. My heart protecting me from getting hurt and my head guiding me to guys that I knew were a shitty match.
“What are you thinking about over there?” Addy asks, nudging my leg with her hand.
“Kevin.”
“How’s he doing?” Addy asks. She’s just as fond of Kevin as I am.
“I think he found someone.”
“That’s great. Why does that appear to make you sad? I thought you wanted him to find someone.”
“I do, and I’m happy for him, but it reminds me that I’m still looking.”
A laugh escapes Addy as she’s about to take a sip of her wine, causing her to cough and sputter for a few minutes.
“What’s so funny?”
