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Her confession broke me.
No, we weren't ready for a child. We were too young and unprepared. Hell, we were still children ourselves.
But we'd made a baby together. Created life from our love.
I couldn't understand how she could make a decision to not have the baby without even telling me. Without asking what I wanted to do.
The simple answer ... the baby might not have been mine.
Tandy had been sleeping with Jeff behind my back for months. She spent the entire week of spring break with him instead of me. She lied to her mom and told her I wasn't being safe and that's how she ended up pregnant when Jeff was the real asshole in that situation.
She blamed me for something she did. Made me out to be the bad guy.
Which is why she broke up with me. Because even though she loved me, she couldn't lie to me anymore.
I guess I should thank her. If she hadn't broken my heart, I wouldn't have ended up at Lake State. I would be at State, living a lie with a girl I loved but didn't love me. Preparing for a future that was built on those lies.
"Tandy, I'm going to ask you once and only once. Please leave and don't ever come back here. You're not welcome in this house anymore."
Her tears have no effect on me as they stream down her cheeks, leaving behind black streaks of mascara. I hold my head high, my lips pressed together to keep from saying something mean, and stare down at her, waiting for her to go.
Finally, she relents, her head dropping to her chest in defeat as she grabs her purse off my dresser and walks out the open door of my bedroom. I hear her say goodbye to my mom, and then finally the front door closes behind her.
Good.
That chapter of my life is over.
"Leo Matthew Raymond, get down here!"
What the hell? Why does it sound like she's mad at me?
As soon as my foot hits the bottom step, my mom starts yelling again.
How dare I ask Tandy to leave. That was rude. She was family. She's all alone on Thanksgiving.
And somehow, she makes me feel like the bad guy.
Which is why I call her and invite her back over. Not that she actually left. She was sitting in her car out front the entire time my mother gave me a lecture at the top of her lungs. I wouldn't be surprised if she heard the entire thing.
Dinner was tense.
Dessert was worse.
I volunteered to clean up while they caught up. The entire time I made a plan to get the hell out of here. To get away from Tandy, from the memories of what she destroyed. There are pictures of the two of us on the walls still. From when we were Homecoming Prince and Princess. Our first dance in high school. Of us at my parents’ lake house. On a family vacation our junior year. The same vacation we slept together for the first time.
She's everywhere I turn in this house, and it's making my skin crawl. I didn't realize how freeing it was to get out of here until now. To get away from the past she tainted with her lies.
After our breakup, I spent weeks trying to figure out what the truth was. When she stopped loving me. What I'd done wrong, only to realize I hadn't done anything to cause what happened. I'd treated her the way she deserved to be treated, all while she was seeking comfort in the arms of someone I thought was my friend. My best friend.
Tandy finally leaves, and I retreat to my room. Not that I'm given any privacy. My mom is insistent we talk about what happened.
"What was that all about? I know you two broke up, but for you to kick her out isn't like you, Leo."
"Mom, I know you loved Tandy, so did I, but you have no idea what she did."
"So explain it to me. One day you two were head over heels in love and the next you were broken up."
"She broke up with me," I state, turning away from my mother. The broken look on her face is too much for me to bear. I want to tell her the truth, but it won't do anyone any good to relive the past. I'm moving on.
