AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She put the manual down. “How long have you two known each other?”
“Since we were babies, really, small towns being what they are. He’s a couple of years older than I am, but we went to the same schools, hung around the same people. The summer he was seventeen, he worked at the coffee shop in a quest to work anywhere but the bakery, and we became the best of friends.”
At the time, he’d been feeling the heat from his parents about leaving town, leaving the bakery. They’d been planning for him to take it over one day, and he’d rebelled against having his future mapped out for him. Now that he was back and doing what his parents had wanted all along, I wondered how he was feeling about it. He didn’t look like he minded, but then again, I knew how well true feelings could be masked.
She tipped her head. “I hear something in your voice when you talk about him that suggests you two were more than friends.”
I scoffed dramatically. “What? No.” I shook my head for good measure, not wanting to talk about it. Even now, I tried to block the memories, slamming the door on them in my mind. Somehow, though, the pain leaked out of the cracks and crevices, flooding my brain.
The pain. And the regret.
They were tangled up together, like thorny vines.
Her thoughtful, mossy eyes narrowed and she tipped her head, silently calling me out on the lie. It was rather disconcerting, to be honest, that she’d heard more in my voice than I’d intended.
“Well, maybe,” I conceded. “But we wanted different things in life, so it didn’t work out. We’ve stayed friends, though. He visits his family a lot, so I see him a few times a year.”
Those meetings were always a mix of tension and happiness. We enjoyed each other’s company, but the shadows of our past always followed us around.
“We exchange birthday and Christmas cards. He sent flowers when I had my TIA, even though he was on a boat in the middle of nowhere at the time. He’s a nice guy. A great guy. I hope—” Suddenly, I shook my head, laughing lightly. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. I’m not usually such a blabbermouth. You’re easy to talk to.”
She smiled. “I’ve always been a good listener.”
I walked over to the dining room table and fussed with the care package I planned to send off to Noah soon. So far it had socks, three gift cards—gas, food, and music—hand sanitizer, and four bags of Golden Eagle caramel corn, which was his favorite snack. I tried to send a package once a month, a small reminder of home and that I was thinking of him.
On impulse, I snapped a pic of the box and wrote:
Not sure there’s enough caramel corn
A moment later, he returned the text.
Never enough!
I smiled.
“Noah?” Ava asked.
“How’d you know?”
“The look in your eyes. It’s the same one in the framed picture on his dresser. Pure love. How old were you when you had him?”
I slipped my phone into my pocket. “I was eighteen when I found out I was pregnant, nineteen when he was born. Having a baby definitely wasn’t something I’d planned on, but as soon as I knew about him, as soon as those lines showed up on that pregnancy test, I loved him. It’s something I can’t even really explain, the immediacy. His father hadn’t quite felt the same. By that time we’d been broken up for a couple of months, andhe begged me not to have the baby. Or to put him up for adoption. But I was already a goner. There was no going back.”
There I went again, jabbering on. She reallywasa good listener.
“Did his dad ever come around?”
For a moment, I let my mind wander back to a late-spring day in Theo’s dorm room—I’d been a commuter student—at the University of South Alabama over in Mobile. I’d rocked on the bed, my arms around my legs, wondering how I was going to tell my daddy that I was pregnant. Theo’s eyes were red, his skin blotchy from trying to hold back tears, hold back his fears. Eventually, both spilled out. He talked about how he was supposed to spend the next year studying abroad. About his career plans. About how he was too young to be a father. That he didn’t knowhowto be a father.
Then, when he asked if we should get married, I all-out panicked. I didn’t love him. Had never loved him. He’d been a good friend, one who for a short time helped me forget how much I missed Donovan. But that was it. Marriage was out of the question.
Instead, I’d urged him to go abroad. I assured him that I could raise the baby on my own until he got back, then we could come up with some sort of financial and visitation arrangement that would work for all of us.
He’d kept in touch for the first couple of months of being apart, still talking often about how scared he was to be a dad. Then contact became more sporadic. Then there was nothing. Not even after Noah was born. Theo had let his fear win.
I probably should have tracked him down. After all, he had a responsibility to our child. But at that point, I didn’t want someone in Noah’s life who didn’t want to be there.
I still didn’t, but that choice was out of my hands now that Noah was older. So far he hadn’t sought out Theo, but if that day came, I’d support it. Because I loved Noah.
