I’d gone from angry to concerned to downright panicked. I hadn’t been able to keep down anything I ate or drank in days, and the stress of not knowing where he was had caused me to start having false labor pains. Now I was officially so sick with worry and desperate for answers that I’d come to the only two people left who could possibly have any idea where he was.
My skin tingled and my pulse pounded as I headed up the long walkway toward the front door. Just the thought of seeing these people made my stomach turn. They were the worst kinds of human beings for what they’d done to Jensen, the pain they caused him, the self-doubt they battered into his head every time they belittled him, until he actually started to believe it himself. I hated them with every fiber of my being.
I rapped my knuckles against the solid wood of the door and waited. A minute passed with no answer. I knocked again as the emotions swirling around inside of me became a tempest. Agitation warred with fear that battled against sorrow that was beaten back by blind rage. It was all too much for my body to contain, and I was afraid it might all come spilling out, rendering me completely useless.
I knocked a third time, this time, banging on it with the side of my fist. I wasn’t leaving here without answers, damn it. The door finally swung open, revealing Jensen’s mom, Cordelia, in all her immaculate, perfectly put together glory.
The irritation in her expression doubled the instant recognition struck, and her top lip curled up like I was nothing more than I bag of dog shit on the front steps.
“Mrs. Rose,” I started, but she didn’t give me a chance to finish.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m looking for Jensen. He hasn’t been home in a week. I have no idea where he is or if he’s okay. Have you spoken to him?”
“Jensen is just fine,” she answered. At the knowledge that he wasn’t lying in a ditch somewhere or unconscious in a hospital bed, but had purposefully disappeared on me, making his parents—who he hated with a passion—aware of his whereabouts, hurt like hell.
“Could you tell me where he is?”
She crossed her arms over her chest and looked down her straight nose at me. “I’ll do no such thing. It took longer than his father or I would have liked, but my son’s finally come to his senses and realized he could do so much better. If he wanted you to know where he was, he would have told you himself.”
I hadn’t thought it possible for a person to endure the kind of pain I was feeling just then and survive, but against all odds, I was still standing. Placing my hands protectively on my protruding belly, I spoke softly. “That’s not true. He wouldn’t leave us like that.”
“Well, it appears he’s done just that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have more important things to do than deal with you.”
She started to close the door in my face, but I quickly raised my hand to stop it. “He wouldn’t leave us like that,” I repeated, my tone much stronger this time. “He wouldn’t abandon his family.”
“We are his family,” she said with a sneer. “You’re just the little girl who got herself knocked up in order to trap him and take his money.”
I knew then that every word out of this woman’s mouth was a lie. She didn’t know her son at all. If she had the first clue who he was, she’d know he didn’t give a single shit about money.
“I’ve said all I’m willing to say, so if you don’t get off my porch, I’ll be forced to call the cops.”
On that threat, I dropped my hand, and she didn’t hesitate to slam the door on me. I turned and moved back to my car, cradling my stomach and the life inside of it as the tears started running down my cheeks. Whether she was lying, whether she really knew where Jensen was or not, there was one thing I knew for certain as I climbed into my car and started it up.
Wherever he was, he’d left me without a word. And he did it knowing it would kill me.
And another thing I knew for certain as I drove away from that terrible house was that wherever he was, whatever he was doing, we were done for good.
Shane
I was dressed in my rattiest sweats, the ones I only wore during my period when everything felt bloaty and crampy. I wasn’t on my period now, but the outfit fit my sullen, mopey mood, so I went with it. My hair was tangled up in a sloppy knot on the top of my head, and I was currently working my way through a gallon container of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.
Brantley was curled up on the couch with me, his eyes focused on the television where Iron Man was currently battling it out with the rest of the Avengers in the middle of Manhattan as he distractedly spooned ice cream into his mouth.
I was having a pity-party; he was excited we were getting ice cream after dinner.
After I got back from Jensen’s office, Caroline had stuck around, hovering over me to make sure I wasn’t going to break. Naturally, I’d lied through my teeth when she asked what had happened, but instead of letting it go like she normally would, letting me work through it on my own, she’d pushed, so I gave in.
We sat out on my teeny front stoop, watching as Brantley raced back and forth on his bike—something he’d now mastered without training wheels thanks to Jensen—and I laid it all out for her. I gave her the full story, every ugly detail.
She’d gone quiet once I finished, staring off into nothing, and I could only assume she was doing the same thing I’d been doing since I found out the truth, trying to wrap her head around it all.
Finally, I couldn’t take the silence anymore. “Will you please say something?”
“I just can’t—” She gave her head a shake, like she was clearing out the cobwebs. “That poor boy. That just breaks my heart.”
My mouth fell open in shock. “Poor boy? What are you talking about? He made these decisions about our future without even talking to me because he didn’t trust I’d stick by him if I knew the truth. He ended us, he walked away when he didn’t have to. I would have stayed.”
“Would you have?” she asked as she turned back to me.
“Of course!”
“Why?”
“Because you don’t leave the people you love,” I declared passionately. “You don’t abandon them. You stay. When you love someone, you fight for them.” She nodded like she was pleased with my answer. “Why are you grinning like that?”
“No reason in particular.” With that bewildering answer, she rose to her feet and slipped the strap of her massive fringed purse over her shoulder. “Well, I best be off. Things to do, people to see and all that jazz.”
And just like that, she left me sitting there feeling more confused than ever.
I sulked my way through doing a bit of laundry. I pouted as I prepared dinner, and now I was brooding through quality time with my kid. God, I was a mess.
The screen door creaked loudly, alerting me to a visitor just before the front door opened.
“Aunt Caro!” Brantley exclaimed, jumping off the sofa and flinging ice cream everywhere as he swung his spoon around and lunged at her like he hadn’t just seen her a few hours earlier.
“What are you doing here?” I mumbled through a mouthful of ice cream.
She looked at me in that stern way she’d only used a handful of times while I’d been growing up. “You asked me to babysit this little munchkin tonight because you have that thing,” she replied, arching a brow like she and I were in on a secret while ruffling Brantley’s hair.