Same story, just a prettier bathroom. I get out and get dressed, and when I walk out of the bathroom, he’s there sitting on the bed waiting for me. His eyes are down and papers are beside him, and I have to hold the doorframe to be able to stand. I love him so much that if me leaving is going to make him happy, I’ll do it. “Is everything okay?” I try to talk without my voice cracking.
“No,” he says and looks down at the floor, and my heart is shattered.
“I get it,” I say, and he looks up. “It was a whirlwind, and everything happened so fast.” He looks at me. “I’m just going to sleep with Dylan, and we can be out of here tomorrow.”
“What?” he says.
“I get it, Justin,” I say, the tears falling now. “It’s fine.” I smile, not wanting him to feel sorry for me or want to be with me because I’m crying. “We’ll be okay.”
“I’m so confused right now,” he says.
“It’s over.” I say it for him, although I shouldn’t. I should make him do the dirty work.
“What’s over?” he asks, confused, and I want to yell at him to stop pretending.
“Us.” I point at him and then myself. “This thing.”
“We aren’t over,” he says, scoffing at me even saying that. “Far from it.”
Now I’m the one who is confused. “Andrew came to see me.”
“What?” I look at him and take a step forward.
He holds up the paper for me. “I did it for you,” he says. “For Dylan.”
My head spins as I try to think about what he did for us, what more can this man could do for us. I grab the paper in my shaking hands, and I unfold it and it looks like a case file and my eyes go line from line until I see the words.
Termination of Parental Rights.
My tears blur my sight, and I can’t continue reading it when I see Dylan’s name. My hands are shaking uncontrollably when I put one of them in front of my mouth. My body shakes now, and I can hear my teeth chattering. “What?”
“He came to me.” Tears roll down his own cheeks and he looks me in the eye. The anguish is written all over his face, the hurt, the pain everything is written on his face. “I’m so sorry.”
“For what?” I’m so confused. “Did you agree to let us go for this?” I shake the paper in my hand. “To have him out of Dylan’s life, you gave us up?”
“Sweetheart,” he says, his voice broken. “Never.” He looks down “He signed it for ten thousand dollars.”
The gasp comes out along with the sob, and I fall, shattered to the floor, and he comes to me. “I’m so sorry, I’m so, so sorry.”
The wail rips through me. “Why?” I can’t even think; I can’t see the paper in my hand crushed between us as he rocks me. “How could he? That’s his child. His blood,” I sob. “His son. Why?” I shake in his arms. “Me, I get, but Dylan, that sweet boy who doesn’t hurt anyone. Who accepts when all I can do is feed him peanut butter. The little boy who doesn’t care that he only got one Christmas gift or that his birthday gift this year was just a meal at McDonald’s and a visit to Dollar Tree. The boy who wore his shoes for two months more than he should have with a hole in the sole without saying anything because his dad’s fucking drug dealer came and took our rent. Or that we had to wear our shoes and gloves to bed one night because the heating got cut off in the spring, but it was still fucking snowing.” I close my eyes, thinking of Dylan. “My son, who doesn’t deserve any of this. Why?”
“I don’t know,” he says softly. “I have no idea, but I had to,” he says, broken. “Don’t hate me. Please don’t hate me.”
“Hate you?” I ask. “Why would I hate you?”
“I gave him money for him to go away,” he says, his heart broken. “He sat in front of me and signed the paper like he was taking out a library book, not signing away his son.”
“After everything that he’s done to you, you still gave him money?” I ask.
“I would have given him everything that I have,” he says, and he dries my tears with kisses. “Right down to my last cent if it got him away from Dylan.”
“I don’t know what I did,” I start to say, and I kiss him, “to deserve you.” I peel his shirt from him. His hand slides under my shirt, and he cups my breast and kisses me again. He pulls my shirt over my head. “I love you,” I say and then kiss him again.
He flips us around, and I’m on my back now in the middle of his room, and he moves my pants down and slowly kisses my leg all the way up my leg and he gets up. “I have to get a condom.” I stop him from walking.
“I have an IUD,” I say. “And in the shower, you didn’t use one.”
He covers me now with his body, and I push his shorts down. “Put me in you,” he says. I grab his cock with my hand and place him at my entrance, and he slides into me. Our mouths find each other, and we swallow our moans as he makes love to me. Slow, ever so fucking slow. Until we both let go, and his name is on my lips. He falls down on me, and I hold him close. My arms and legs hold on to him. He rolls off me, and I get up off the floor. Going to the bathroom, I clean up, and when I get into bed, I look over at him.
“Is that where you went this morning?” I ask, and he turns to me.
“Yes,” he says, and I look up at him. “He came to me yesterday when I went to get my wallet.”
“That’s why you acted weird all last night?” I ask, and he nods.
“I thought …” I start to say.
“You thought I was breaking up with you?” he says, and I roll my eyes.
“What was I supposed to think? You were distant yesterday, and then today, you didn’t even kiss me goodbye.” I pretend that it doesn’t bother me, but all day long, I was on pins and needles.
“I was afraid that if I said anything, I would tell you, and then you would stop me.”
“Did you go by yourself?” I ask. I want to know it all. “Please tell me everything.”
“No. Matthew got there yesterday when Andrew was there, and if he tried anything, Matthew would have been another one arrested.”
“Oh my God,” I say. “Did he come with you today?”
“Everyone was there,” he says. “The men, at least.”
“Oh my God,” I say, putting my hand in my face feeling embarrassed.
“We got there, and I was a nervous wreck. I thought he wasn’t going to show. I think deep down I hoped he’d wake up and realize what he was doing, but he walked in there and had no care in the world.”
“He’s a horrible person.”
“He’s a son of a fucking bitch, and I fucking hate him,” Justin says. “I made sure he knew that he wasn’t allowed to contact him, and the only way he would have communication with Dylan was if Dylan wanted to talk to him.”
“What do we tell him?” I ask, and he takes a deep breath.
“I have no idea. I was going to say nothing and hope that when he gets older, he has no memory of him,” Justin says. “I hate Andrew, but he did do one thing. He made Dylan.”