Chapter 35

Ryan

 

 

Laughter bellowed from my chest as Kayla bounced out of the car and down the walkway to the house, wearing her new elephant hat and duck shoe covers that I got her at the gift shop at the zoo. I knew that this outing would be a hit for Kayla, since she pretty much loved the zoo with everything in her being. It was hard to do these kinds of things without constantly thinking about Alissa, but I tried to stay the course, not wanting to take myself backward into something that I wasn’t sure I had any control over anymore. It had been weeks now since Alissa and I had been together, and we hadn’t talked at all, not even through text. I tried to respect that, knowing how hurt she probably was.

I reached the front door and unlocked it, letting Kayla run inside and waiting for Christina to catch up. I was assuming she wasn’t used to the energy level of an eight-year-old, but at least this time, she had worn jeans and a t-shirt with sneakers instead of traipsing around in high fashion next to the lion pit. She walked past me and smiled fakely with her lips tightly pursed together. I rolled my eyes and sighed, walking in behind them and shutting the door. Kayla raced upstairs to put away her stuff, and I looked over at Christina, not sure what to say to her.

Everything still seemed so stressed, almost forced from her, and I couldn’t figure out why. By now, I would have figured she would be back in the flow of things with Kayla at least. She was very distant from Kayla and was doing things in a way that was “expected,” and not just relaxed and with the flow of the moment. She also seemed to forget that Kayla was old enough to do things like wipe her own nose and tie her own shoes, which had led to an embarrassing moment for Kayla at the zoo in front of the monkey cages. I was no longer going to sit by and just let it continue like that, not if this was supposed to decide whether I let Christina back in our lives or not. She had to either let me know what was going on, or things needed to change, because at that moment, we were at a complete standstill.

Christina sat down on the couch and leaned back, closing her eyes, which gave me the message that she wasn’t going to be putting Kayla to bed that night. I shook my head and headed upstairs, picking up one of Kayla’s lost duck feet and laughing. When I got inside her room, she was already in the bed with the covers pulled up to her chin. She reached up as I leaned over and wrapped her arms around my neck, kissing me on the cheek.

“I had a really good time, Daddy; thank you,” she said sweetly.

“You are welcome, my sweet,” I replied. “Get some sleep, okay? I’ll see you bright and early for some yummy breakfast.”

“Okay.” She yawned, turning over and clutching her baseball doll.

I left the room and turned out the light, pulling her door almost all the way shut. I went back downstairs and gently sat down on the couch next to Christina, folding my hands in front of me. She opened her eyes and looked over at me with a smile. I couldn’t let this go on anymore without saying something about it.

“Christina,” I said, turning slightly toward her. “I can’t help but notice, and I’ve noticed this since the ball game, that things seem really strained. You are acting like you are being forced to interact with Kayla. What is going on? I feel like there is something that you aren’t telling me. If you are trying to make this work, then you need to be totally upfront and honest with me.”

“I don’t know.” She sighed.

She sat there for several minutes, her eyes moving back and forth as she thought about her words. Slowly, she pulled her hand over to my knee and squeezed my leg, turning her head toward me as it rested on the back of the couch. Her eyes changed, and it was an all too familiar look. She seemed to forget that I was married to her for a long time and knew what the sultry stare meant. Immediately, I felt uncomfortable, almost like I was doing something wrong.

“I miss you,” she whispered. “I miss your strong muscles, your hot naked body, and all the wild things you used to do to me in bed. It’s been a long time, Ryan, and I think I might just be a little pent up.”

She started to move her hand farther up my leg, and I grabbed it, staring her in the face. There wasn’t a single bone in my body that was even considering sleeping with Christina. I hadn’t even reached the point where I was the least bit attracted to her. Beyond the way she mothered, or didn’t mother, Kayla, there was still the issue that she was fucking my best friend behind my back for God knows how long. The last thing on my mind was screwing my ex-wife, no matter how long it had been since I got any.

“I know that in your mind this is a package deal,” I said, laying her hand back in her lap and pulling away. “For me though, it’s a bit different than that. This little plea for our family is twofold for me. I am not, in any way, focused on you and me right now. Right now, I am focused on whether or not you can be a mother to our daughter, something that you haven’t shown you are really interested in doing. Motherhood doesn’t give participation trophies, Christina. You have to actually put something into it. If, and that is a big if, you can show me that you can be a loving and adequate mother to Kayla again, then we can start discussing the possibility of the two of us rekindling anything that may have been there before. If you haven’t forgotten, you didn’t just leave Kayla, you were fucking my best friend for months and then left us both for him.”

Her eyes lightened again, and a pout moved across her lips like a child that had been scorned. I knew this story all too well and had dealt with it in our marriage over and over again. Only then, I gave into it. Anytime that Christina was coming under the knife for anything she may have done wrong, she tried to use her sexual prowess to get herself out of it. The difference now was the fact that I wasn’t interested in sleeping with her. Before, I was in love, or at least I thought I was, and didn’t want to give up a chance to have hot sex with my then wife.

“Right,” she said, picking up her head. “I forgot that you’ve spent the last who knows how long screwing that dumb, frumpy interior designer, Alissa. I think it’s hilarious that you go from this to a rebound like her. Talk about dating down after a divorce. What was wrong? You couldn’t find anyone outside of your own family to date, so you decided that dating your own sister was a good idea? You want to sit there and pass judgment on me, but I wasn’t playing house with my father’s wife’s daughter. I can see that when I left, I took all the class right out the door with me. I mean, God, does she even get jobs with the kind of skills I am staring at in this house? Taupe and earth tones? Gross.”

She stood up and stomped over to her bag, pulling it over her shoulder and searching for her keys. Everything in me wanted to tell her to get the hell out and never come back, but I knew that my little girl was just above our heads, snugly tucked into her covers, happy from a day spent with her mother and father. I took in a deep breath and unclenched my teeth, realizing that I had just probably embarrassed Christina a bit, and she was lashing out because of that. Still, I didn’t want to look at her face anymore that night.

“You are too much.” I laughed. “You don’t get your way for one night, and all of a sudden, you turn into this vicious bitch that has the audacity to put me down for my choices after you walked out on your baby girl. You, the woman who ran away with her husband’s best friend and then came crawling back here, begging for forgiveness, have the balls to sit there and try to make me feel bad for moving on with my life and having a relationship with someone that actually gave a damn about Kayla and me. I want you to leave for the night. I’m sick of looking at your face. I’ll call you tomorrow, and maybe we can continue what we have been doing. I need some time to think.”

She looked up at me in shock that I actually had the guts to tell her to get out. When we were married, she pretty much ruled the roost, and she wasn’t used to me being so assertive. I had grown a lot since she left, and whether she wanted to admit it or not, I was not the same man that she was married to before. She could thank herself for that. I was no longer going to sit by and let her push me around and say things that were meant to be hurtful. This was my decision, not hers, and she needed to start understanding she was no longer in control.

She dropped her hands down to her sides and looked at the floor, taking in a deep breath and closing her eyes. She stood there for several moments, thinking about what had just happened. That was the first time she had come at me like that since she had arrived, and it was obvious there was a lot of bad blood between us. She slowly raised her head and stared at me, her face now thoughtful and saddened.

“Ryan, I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m not used to you turning me down, and it hurt my ego. I flew off the handle, and I shouldn’t have done that. I will admit that I am jealous of the relationship that you, Alissa, and Kayla have built up since I have been gone. But I am back now, and I am trying for my family, something I want back more than anything because I love both of you so very much.”

“You need to try harder,” I said calmly. “If what you say is true, then you really need to try harder.”

“I understand,” she said meekly.

“Go back to the hotel, get a good night’s sleep, and I’ll call you in the morning,” I replied with exhaustion. “Nothing is going to get solved tonight. We are both exhausted and angry.”

She nodded and walked out of the house, quietly shutting the door behind her. Nothing about what she said made me feel bad, but it definitely calmed me down enough to think straight. This was a way more difficult situation than I originally had realized.