AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yes. The week after her visit, I gave a DNA sample. Once the results showed I was his father, we began to hash out the legalities of me taking custody of him. I’ve spent the past two weeks in Idaho Falls, spending time with him and going to therapy with him to help him make this transition. It’s been a long month.”
That explained the weariness she’d heard, but perhaps it had been a long month made longer by his unwillingness to share what was going on. To let others walk alongside him.
“How old is he?” Misha asked, trying to figure out the timeline in her head.
“He’s six. She got pregnant with him during my senior year.”
“Why didn’t you tell anyone what was going on? Your family was so worried.”I was so worriedshe wanted to say, but she kept those words to herself.
More silence. When it didn’t end, Misha looked at the phone to make sure the call hadn’t dropped.
“I was ashamed.”
“Of your son?” That didn’t sound like the Jay she’d come to know… and love. But maybe she’d really misjudged the type of man he was.
“No. I was ashamed of my actions that led to his mom getting pregnant in the first place.” Jay exhaled heavily. “I allowed myself to become physically intimate with Casey, even though I’d been taught that sex should be reserved for marriage. We’d been together a couple of years before it got to that point for us. However, once I’d already been intimate with one woman, it was easier to become intimate with others. Which I did.”
“So having a child revealed what you’d done,” Misha guessed.
She’d been raised with similar values, and she’d stuck to them. But she hadn’t always given her faith importance in her life, so she wasn’t sure how much had been conviction and how much had been a lack of opportunity. She hadn’t dated anyone long enough to want to be physically intimate with them.
“Yes. I had managed to hide my actions from everyone,” Jay said. “But after breaking up with Casey that last time, I resolved to do better. To be better. To not have to hide my actions because there would be nothing to hide.”
She thought of what he’d shared about his promises to his mom, and it started to make a lot more sense. His mom had wanted him to be an honorable man, and yet he’d faltered and, in his mind, failed her. It was only natural for a person to want to hide that failure.
“I don’t think your family would have rejected you over this,” Misha said. Her experiences with them had shown that they were gracious and loving. Surely that grace and love would have extended to their son and brother.
“Probably not,” Jay agreed. “But this situation was the consequence of my bad decisions. I couldn’t ask anyone else to deal with it.”
“Except Will.” Misha felt a stirring of jealousy. Would he have ever turned to her the way he’d been so willing to turn to his best friend?
“Will already knew about my physical relationships with women,” Jay said. “There are no secrets between us, so I didn’t feel like I was letting him down.”
“Would you have ever shared this particular secret with anyone else had you not needed to take Peyton?” Maybe she should have asked her real question. Would he have shared that secret withher?
His silence hurt more than it should have.
“I don’t know.” At least he was being honest. “I wanted everyone to think well of me. My parents raised me to be a certain way, and I wanted them to be proud of me. The boys I coach look up to me. Even your mom has told me what a good man I am. I didn’t want to lose any of that. And now I’ve got to deal with everyone realizing that I’m nothing but a fraud.”
Misha noticed he didn’t say anything about how she had viewed him. Maybe he didn’t realize just how much of her heart was already tied up in him. Though she was hurt by his actions, she could understand why he’d acted—and reacted—the way he had. But she had a feeling that nothing she felt was going to matter in the long run.
“I doubt anyone thinks you’re a fraud,” Misha assured him.
“I pretended to be something I’m not. An honorable man? Would an honorable man have treated women the way I did? Iknew better and did it anyway, figuring it wouldn’t matter since I was far enough away from home that no one would ever know.”
Misha realized then that there was nothing she could say to make him feel any differently. These weren’t judgments that anyone else had passed on him. They were judgments he was passing on himself.
Was it likely that there were people whowouldjudge him? Sure. Just like there had been people who had judged her mom to be a bad parent when Davontae had gotten caught up in the gang. And there had been more who had judged her when word had spread that Raden had gotten his girlfriend pregnant.
Misha knew it was difficult to face that judgment whether a person had done anything to warrant it or not. But if Jay had been truly trying to change, it was possible he could use this to help others—particularly the boys he coached—to make different decisions.
She didn’t say that to him right then, however, because she wasn’t sure it would be well-received.
“I’ve taken up enough of your time,” Jay said. “I just wanted you to hear about all of this from me.”
“I appreciate that,” Misha said, understanding now that Janessa had likely not called her because Jay had asked her not to.
“I… I think it might be best if we… I mean, I’m going to be pretty focused on helping Peyton with this change in his life. He’s… struggling.”
