Chapter 29
Things changed in the week after the guest house reunion. Nolan began sleeping on the couch and I didn’t know the right way to ask him why. He and Hannah began talking again, though she insisted they were just friends and she didn’t want to get involved. Adam saw Harper twice, with Mason dropping her off to him both times and then bringing her back to me. We didn’t speak.
He called the last Sunday morning before Christmas and asked if he could come over and see her. He wanted to spend time with her and talk to me. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it but after talking to Nolan, I agreed. He came over just after noon.
It was awkward at first, the three of us sharing space. Nolan looked the most uncomfortable of all and I wondered if he still felt any of the things he’d claimed to feel before. I knew it was silly; whatever had happened between us had faded and it needed to remain that way. But still a part of me couldn’t help but wonder what could have happened if I hadn’t stopped it when I did.
Harper was just waking up from her nap so I went into the bedroom to get her up and ready, leaving Adam and Nolan in the living room together. I took my time, giving her a diaper change and putting her back in her regular clothes since she didn’t like to take naps in them. Putting her on my hip I headed back into the living room, surprised to see them actually talking and looking somewhat more at ease than they had been.
Adam’s eyes lit up at the sight of Harper and he hurried towards us. I handed her over to him and she let out a giggle, nuzzling her face against his neck. He’d been a little lax about shaving, but Harper seemed to enjoy it. And I had to admit he didn’t look bad.
“I guess I should head out,” Nolan remarked, glancing back and forth between us with a hint of a smile on his lips.
“You don’t have to,” Adam said. “This is your place.”
“I don’t mind,” he replied. “I’ll give you two some time alone.” He squeezed my hand and patted Adam on the shoulder before heading out.
We turned to each other, suddenly at a loss for what should happen next. It had been more than a week since the last time we’d talked to each other in person. The times he’d seen Harper had been decided through text message, our only communication. A part of me had hoped it would stay that way.
“How are you doing?” I asked finally, when he was setting Harper down on her blanket and sitting next to her. I sat on the couch, a little away from them.
“I’ve definitely been better,” he said with a strained laugh. “How about you?”
“I’m holding up,” I replied, not wanting to reveal how lonely I’d been since moving out. I’d managed to keep the tears at bay, but something told me I wasn’t necessarily safe yet. They would catch up with me eventually. They always did.
“You seem better than holding up,” he remarked. “Actually, you seem happy. Happier than you were with me.” There was hidden bitterness in his voice and as much as I wanted to ignore it, I couldn’t.
“You were never around until the month before I left,” I reminded him. “It was hard to be happy with you when I never saw you.”
He sighed. “I know,” he agreed, and that was the end of it.
There was a brief silence before he continued. “Just so you know… if anything happens between you and Nolan… well, I wouldn’t exactly be okay with it, but I’d accept it. He’s changed too, except he actually managed to do it for the better.” He let out a bitter laugh.
“He’s turned into a great guy,” I admitted. “But there’s nothing between us. We’re friends and he’s been there for me more than I could ever imagine. I love him, but not in the way you seem to think.”
“I just know firsthand how hard it is to not want you,” he said, making eye contact with me. I quickly looked away. I wasn’t doing this now. I’d agreed to today so he could spend time with Harper, not so we could play this game.
“I think he and Hannah are going to get back together,” I said. “I don’t think either of them wants to admit it yet but it’s heading in that direction.”
“Oh,” Adam said, looking both surprised and relieved. “That might be good.”
“Maybe, but she’s pretty sure she’s moving to South Carolina. She’s heading back down there on Tuesday.”
It hurt more than I’d expected to say those words. She’d told me earlier in the week after all the drama had died down a little. With Nora and my dad’s divorce winding down, she had to make a decision soon. Chances were Nora wasn’t going to let her continue living with a man that was no longer her legal stepfather and I knew there was no way Hannah would settle with going back to Raleigh.
I knew it would be good for her and that was the only thing getting me through this. I knew Hannah deserved to have her own life and find her own happiness and it was selfish of me to want her to stay. She’d been my support system my entire pregnancy and still now, even with everything going on in her life. But I loved her and I needed to let her go.
“Long distance works sometimes,” Adam remarked. “At least that’s what I heard. Never actually tried it.”
And that was when it hit me. I was no longer obligated to stay in Haven once I was finished with high school. Once I was a legal adult I could move to wherever I wanted, taking Harper with me. I wasn’t tied down here anymore, just like Hannah wasn’t tied to Haven now that her mother was gone. Once I graduated high school I could be free.
I pictured Harper, three years old and moving to South Carolina with me. We could get an apartment together, the three of us. Adam could visit whenever he wanted and when Harper was older she could visit him. They’d still have a relationship; he’d still be an active part of her life. But I’d be free to go wherever I wanted, be whatever I wanted. The minute Adam and I ended our relationship, I was free to leave Haven someday. I felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. A weight I hadn’t been aware I was carrying.
There was already little left for me here and once Hannah was gone, there would be nothing. Mason was considering moving here, but nothing was set in stone. And soon he’d have a family of his own. He and Cynthia wanted children within the next few years. He’d stopped jumping to my defense every chance he got because he’d need to protect them more. We could go back to having a normal brother sister relationship. We’d visit on holidays and birthdays and random weekends between.
I could go to a real college. I wouldn’t have to settle for Haven Community or an online school the way I’d have to here. One with a daycare center so Harper would be well taken care of while I learned. I’d concentrate on school and go straight through, no summers off so I could finish early. I’d get a career right after graduation and Harper would be in school by then, at least preschool. I’d fall in love again, this time with someone who chooses me because they want to, not because they had to. We’d date for a few years and he would propose. It would be romantic and well thought out and he’d do it because he couldn’t fathom a life without me, not because I was pregnant and there was an obligation. We’d get married in a simple ceremony and stay that way forever. Maybe we’d have more children; maybe not. Harper would be so much older by then, she might not want other siblings. And besides, Adam wanted a big family. She would most definitely have brothers and sisters from him.
My new husband and I would live happily ever after and all of this pain I’d gone through as a teenager with Adam would seem silly. Adam and I would become friends again eventually, but that would be it. We’d look at each other and smile; no hint of what we’d once done to each other. Harper would be the only proof we’d ever existed.
I felt like there was yet another weight lifted off of my shoulders. I was free from obligation, free from having to keep promises I hadn’t been aware I was making until it was too late.
I was so lost in my daydream that I didn’t realize Adam was talking to me until he was a few inches from my face. “Are you still in there?” He asked, and I blinked.
“What?”
He gave me an odd look. “I’ve been trying to get your attention for the last few minutes. I think Harper needs a diaper change and I have no idea where you keep them and I’d rather not go snooping around Nolan’s apartment.”
“Oh,” I said. “They’re in the bedroom, next to her Pack N Play.”
“Alright.” He shot me another questioning look and headed into the bedroom. I turned to Harper, who was watching me expectantly.
“What?” I asked defensively. “Mommies can dream, too.”
She let out a loud giggle as if to tell me that wasn’t true. I stuck my tongue out at her and she giggled harder, knocking herself over. She seemed unaffected and began playing with her feet. I laughed to myself.
Adam came back with a fresh diaper and changed Harper, despite her protests. I was a little impressed; he never did any of that when we lived together. Maybe living separately would actually make things a little easier for me. But then he flashed me a smile that felt so familiar, my heart ached. Maybe not.
Nolan came back an hour later and Adam decided to leave soon after. We still hadn’t talked about what we would do about Christmas, so we agreed to talk about it the next day. We shared a brief, awkward hug before he left.
“That was interesting,” Nolan remarked, flopping onto the couch with Harper on his lap.
“You could say that again,” I agreed, sitting next to him and clamping a hand over his mouth before he actually could. I felt him smile against my hand.
“Where did you go?” I asked.
“I went to see Hannah, actually,” he admitted, avoiding my eyes. “We’re talking, I guess you could say.”
“That’s great,” I said, hoping my voice didn’t betray my disappointment. I hated myself for feeling that way. Nolan and Hannah both deserved to be happy and I really believed they could find that in each other. Nolan had finally turned into the person Hannah had deserved last year, and maybe needed even more this year. He glanced over at me.
“Maybe,” he said. “I’m just not sure we should be putting ourselves through this again. I mean, I don’t think I’ll go and start dating Maggie again instead, but I’m not so sure I won’t do anything to hurt her, eventually. I haven’t tried a relationship since…” his voice trailed off and he let out a small laugh. “Well, a few weeks ago.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, blushing.
“For what?”
“Um, leading you on, I guess.”
“You didn’t. Well, not really.”
“I did,” I insisted. “I just didn’t want it to be about getting back at Adam, you know? I’m not saying it was, I just didn’t want to take any chances.”
“I get it,” he reassured me. “I completely get it. And I’ll be honest; it sucked at first. I really care about you, Lainey. You’re someone I could really see wanting in my life, helping me make it better. But at the end of the day…”
“I’m still your best friend’s ex and more than that, the mother of his child,” I continued for him, smiling sadly. “I get it, Nolan. Believe me.”
“So we’re good?”
“Better than good,” I smiled.
“And you’re okay with me getting back together with Hannah? If that’s what she even wants.”
“More than okay,” I confirmed. “I know she’ll want that. Maybe not right now, but soon. She just has so much going on in her life that she needs to settle first.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s so great about her dad, though. She seems happy.”
“She is happy,” I smiled. “And you’ll only make her happier. You’d better, anyway. Because if not…”
“Oh believe me, I already know,” he grinned. “You made it pretty clear last year.”
I smiled at him and rested my head on his shoulder, reaching out and rubbing Harper’s back. We weren’t a family and we were never going to be, but we were something close. I’d found an unexpected friendship with Nolan and I wasn’t about to ever let that go for any reason.
Chapter 30
Adam and I compromised. Christmas Eve would be spent at Bella Vista with my dad, Mason and Cynthia and even Nolan. He’d talked to his parents finally and they were angry, but agreed to figure out a new path for him. They offered to get him an extra ticket to attend their holiday vacation with them but he turned them down.
Christmas Day would be spent with Julia and Ned like it had been last year. I was dreading it a little. I’d managed to avoid both of them to an extent since the breakup even though I knew they didn’t blame me for leaving.
I wasn’t exactly looking forward to Christmas Eve, either. Despite what he’d said when he first got home from the vacation, my dad hadn’t made any actual attempts to be a part of my life again or to get to know Harper. I wasn’t terribly disappointed. If I’d learned anything over this past year, it was to not expect more from people than what they’ve been willing to give in the past. It had been more than a year since I’d discovered my father’s affair and it seemed clear to me that we were never going to get things back on track. I was beginning to understand what people meant when they said they wanted more for their children than they had growing up; it wasn’t restricted to material things. Not at all.
We all gathered at Bella Vista around five o’clock. I saw Cynthia first and she gushed over how much Harper had grown in the month since she’d last seen her. Cynthia was practically glowing with excitement; she’d managed to snag an interview during her winter vacation with Haven Elementary School. It was the first step towards possibly being able to move down here in June. She and Mason looked like they couldn’t be happier.
Nolan and I had arrived together, which rewarded a little bit of awkwardness when Adam showed up a little later. He’d come alone which had surprised me, even though maybe it shouldn’t have. I guess a part of me had been expecting him to reconcile with Natalie once it became clear our relationship was over.
Dinner was delivery pizza, not that I was completely surprised about it. My dad didn’t cook, and Mason and Cynthia opted to spend every free moment they had together, not over a stove. I didn’t mind, anyway.
In the spirit of Christmas, I let Harper have her first taste of plain pizza. She immediately spit it out and made a disgusted sound, which resulted in everyone laughing whenever she suspected I was going to give her another piece and began to make a fuss. I grinned, feeling happy to be there; something I hadn’t expected.
After dinner we sat around and talked. Hannah was in South Carolina already and she sent me a text to make sure everything was going smoothly and to say she was having a great time. She was getting close to her stepmother; something Nora wouldn’t be overjoyed to hear, I was sure.
A half an hour after we were all sitting together I saw Adam get up and sneak out of the room. I figured he was going to the bathroom at first, but when he didn’t come back ten minutes later, I started to worry.
Squeezing Nolan’s hand so he knew where I was going, I handed Harper over to him and followed the direction Adam had taken. He’d been quiet all night. I hadn’t thought much of it at first; things were still a little awkward and I didn’t think he was too keen on the idea of spending Christmas Even here.
I checked the bathroom, the kitchen and even my old bedroom, but no sign of Adam. I went out the backdoor and could see a silhouette standing in the distance. Wrapping my arms around myself, I hurried towards him.
I couldn’t help but think back to more than a year earlier, when I was the silhouette in the distance, standing almost in the exact same spot he did now. Crying because I’d never felt more lost in my life. The person standing on the beach might have been different, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe the situation wasn’t.
“What are you doing?” I had to almost shout the words over the rumble of the ocean. He turned, visibly surprised to see me.
“Just thinking,” he said.
“About what?”
“About how it all came to this.”
“Adam…”
“No, Lainey. I need to think about it. I have no idea how it happened. One minute I was seeing you on the beach, and realizing it was finally my chance to talk to you. I blink, and you’re pregnant. Then suddenly Harper is here and she’s so much more real than I ever imagined. And then I see Natalie again…” He shook his head.
“I don’t know how I could have screwed this up so badly. It seemed so easy when you were pregnant. I loved you and I wasn’t scared, not really. I figured the way I felt about you would be enough to get us through. But I was so, so wrong.”
“We’re young,” I told him, as if that could explain everything. “Neither of us knows what we’re doing most of the time. We just do whatever seems right at the moment, and deal with the consequences later.”
“It never felt right with her,” he said, shaking his head. “Never. I knew it was wrong, but I kept going back.”
“And you don’t know why?”
He sighed. “I think I know why, but I don’t like it.”
“Tell me.”
He looked down at me and I cringed inwardly at the pain his eyes held. “You weren’t the same after Harper was born. She was your world. I could understand why, but I guess I was just… envious of it. I wanted to be your world again. I wanted you to look at me the way you used to, love me the way you used to, and you didn’t. And then I saw Natalie, and she was looking at me like that. She told me she’d heard about you, and us and the baby, and that she was jealous and sad. She regretted the abortion, and that got to me. I was in pain, and she was in pain…”
“And you wanted to erase all of it,” I whispered so quietly I wasn’t sure he’d heard. He nodded, indicating he had.
“Yeah,” he whispered back. “I wanted all the pain to go away and for a while I guess it did. But now look at us. It’s so much worse.”
I resisted the urge to tell him I knew exactly how he felt, that I’d felt the same way not that long ago with his best friend. That when I kissed Nolan it was an attempt to kiss the pain away, the pain we both held for different reasons. But I couldn’t bring myself to do that. Partly because I knew it would hurt him and I had no desire to hurt him. And partly because I wasn’t sure if it were even true, or if I just told myself that to avoid the possibility of having real feelings for someone so unattainable.
“I’m sorry I changed, Adam. But I had to. Harper deserves so much more than a sixteen year old girl who doesn’t know what she’s doing for a mother. I’m sorry you felt like I didn’t want you. I can’t even explain it. I just didn’t want you to see me, I guess. I didn’t want you to touch me because I felt like my body didn’t belong to me anymore. Harper had taken it over and even after she was here, it just didn’t feel like mine. I don’t know if that makes sense or not.”
“I should have talked to you about it,” he said with regret. “I should have talked to you about why you didn’t seem to want me anymore, instead of pressuring you. Instead of turning to Natalie everytime you turned me away. I was such an idiot and it wasn’t me. We started this off on the wrong foot, cheating on Maggie and Scott, and I never thought I’d turn around and do not the same, but even worse to you. I love you, Lainey.”
“I love you, too,” I admitted, reaching for his hand. “I’m always going to. You hurt me and I can’t honestly tell you that I’m over it yet, but I still love you. You’re Harper’s dad. That won’t ever change.”
He squeezed my hand and smiled at me gratefully. “What about this? Do you think this will change?”
“I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head. “But I don’t think so, Adam. I’m so sorry to say that, but I just don’t think we can make this work. We were too young when it all started. We might have thought we knew what we wanted, but we didn’t.”
“I know I want you,” he said with conviction. “That never changed.”
“You slept with someone else.”
“I know and I will regret that every day for the rest of my life. It was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made and I can’t even begin to tell you how sorry I am. But it never once changed the way I feel about it, and I accept that it changed the way you feel. But I’ll win you back, Lainey.”
“Adam…” I shook my head.
Still holding my hand, he moved so that he was in front of me. He lifted our clasped hands and pressed mine against his chest so that I could feel his heart beating. “I’m going to get you back,” he whispered with determination, leaning in and kissing my forehead. “If it’s the last thing I do, we’re going to be a family again.”
I closed my eyes and when I opened them again, he was already gone. I turned and watched him walking towards Bella Vista, leaving me standing there confused and a little heartbroken. Against my will it brought me back to that first night, our first kiss. Hannah finding us and leaving Adam there, watching me with wonderment in his eyes as I walked away from him for the first time.
But that night was different. I might have walked away, but it was the start of everything. Nothing Adam said could make this feel any less like the end.