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Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Darren coming toward me. His body language wasn’t welcoming. He wasn’t holding himself like a man excited to start exploring what it was to be a family. Or even excited just to talk to me. Not that I blamed him. I wasn’t exactly excited to talk to him, either. I hated to think it and wouldn’t have admitted it to anyone, but I missed him. Talking to him now, though, just seemed like a lead-in to an argument.
“Jane said the lab will have the results soon. She’s going to get in touch with me as soon as they are available, and we can go over them. We should set up a time to talk in a neutral space. Probably without the little one,” he said.
“A neutral space?” I asked. “What the hell does that mean?”
“I just think it would be better if we didn’t meet at your place or mine to discuss the results and what they’ll mean for us moving forward. It would be better for everyone involved, in many different ways, if we meet somewhere that isn’t home turf for either one of us where we can talk openly.”
I totally agreed. The idea of being in either one of our homes wasn’t appealing. Whichever home we ended up in, that person would feel like they had the power and it would feel off-balance and skewed. Choosing somewhere without a particular link to either one of us meant we could have a mature, purposeful, and productive conversation. I just really hoped Darren and I could keep up with our dedication to not get lawyers involved. For several reasons, not the least of which was I simply couldn’t afford one. I had no interest in splashing out a huge amount of money just to have somebody argue about why my daughter should be with me.
“Absolutely. You pick a place and let me know when you want to meet,” I told him.
I wasn’t the biggest fan of sounding like I was completely handing over control to him, but he knew the area better and would be able to find a place perfect for what we needed. He left and I let out a long breath that felt like I’d been holding it the entire time. Turning back to the tent, I joined Greg and Gus and tried to lose myself in work rather than think about what just happened.
As much as I tried not to let it be that way, watching this race was even harder than the last one after Greg crashed. The fear and anxiety were there just like they were before, the trauma of watching Greg hit the track making me worry about Darren. But it was more than that. As I stood there watching him, I could see him getting more aggressive. He pushed his bike to top speed and took tremendous risks moving around other racers. When the got to the front of the pack, he shot ahead of his competitors and took turns far too tightly.
It was all to maintain his position, which I understood was the intention of the race, but it made my heart leap into my throat and I felt sick the entire time. He took a particularly sharp slice across the track and narrowly escaped his bike tire getting clipped by the rider behind him.
“Holy shit,” I blurted out, whipping around so my back was briefly to the track.
It was an impulsive, unprofessional reaction I shouldn’t have let happen, but I couldn’t help it. Around me the rest of the crew was freaking out a little, too, and I hoped they were so wrapped up in the race they didn’t notice how strongly I reacted. But when I glanced back at Gus, he stared at me with knowing eyes. Guilt came over me again. I was thankful for the way Gus was treating me after everything went down, but that didn’t release me from feeling awful about how this was all unfolding.
I never wanted it to be this way. Telling Darren the news wasn’t going to create an instantly joyful moment, I had known that. I didn’t expect him to suddenly sweep Willa up into his arms and swing her around like in a slow-motion commercial. It was going to be difficult. It was going to be confusing, and there would be some challenges both of us would have to overcome. But I didn’t think it would be like this. I never would have imagined I would already be attached to his family when the truth came out and wouldn’t just be intruding on his life, but on theirs as well.
Even worse, I didn’t know I’d be attached to him. Of course I had feelings for him. They never really went away. But I didn’t think they would be so much stronger when I finally told him. That made this all so much harder. Darren got me thinking we could have a real relationship, but now I had no idea. Everything was up in the air and all of it was my own damn fault.
