Chapter 27

Scott

The new job was great, but I was distracted by everything else going on in my life. Cassie was pregnant. I was going to be a father—if she didn’t kick me entirely out of their lives forever. I couldn’t believe I was such an idiot, responding to her confession of the pregnancy how I did. I was taken completely off guard. I hadn’t expected that in any shape or form. It was like word vomit, and I knew as soon as I said it, it was definitely the wrong thing to say.

No, of course I didn’t factor a baby into my plans when I was working everything out. I didn’t even think I was dating anyone, which I still wasn’t, but that wasn’t the point. In the plans or not, I could make the whole thing work. I would just have to shift around my priorities. I would be glad to shift around my priorities, especially for Cassie and my future child. Children weren’t on my mind in the least, but that didn’t mean I didn’t welcome the idea with open arms, especially with Cassie, the woman I knew I loved more than anything.

I wanted to be part of this, to hold that child in my arms and have its mother be the woman in my life. I wanted a family with Cassie no matter how unplanned or unexpected it was. She was so precious to me, and now I had another amazing thing to add to my life. How could I ever be upset about that? But the biggest issue was that Cassie, thinking my reaction was more than off-the-cuff shock, refused to speak to me. I had to figure out a way to get her back in my life, to make her fall in love with me all over again.

This was no longer one of those things I could watch and see how it played out. I could never be satisfied knowing I had a child out there and that I could have had a family but I let it slip away. Being with Cassie was already important to me, but now it was paramount. I would keep at it, working to win her love, working to get her to see I was the man for her, and I wouldn’t stop until she realized it. This was too important, too vital to the rest of my life, and to the life of our child. I couldn’t let that child grow up in a broken home when there was every reason for the three of us to be a family.

I pulled out my phone and scanned through the numbers, stopping on Cassie’s. I had been calling her and texting her all day long, but she refused to answer me. I wasn’t going to give up though. She would have to block my number before I stopped trying to reach out to her. She would have to talk to me at some point, and right then was way better than when the pregnancy had progressed. I flipped over to the text screen and sent another message.

“Please, Cassie, I need you to talk to me,” I texted. “Please come over to my place and talk about this with me, if for no other reason than the baby.”

I closed the phone and held it against my chin, hoping the message would show where my interests lie. I needed her to know that I cared about more than just getting her back. I cared about our child, and I wanted to be part of its life. I sat there for about an hour, feeling beaten up by the fact that she didn’t respond. I got up to grab a beer from the fridge but stopped, hearing the sound of a car door shutting. I walked over and glanced out the window. Cassie was walking up the driveway. I hurried over and opened the front door, trying not to seem too excited. She stopped in front of me and looked up with a straight face.

“Come in,” I said, swallowing hard and moving to the side. “Can I get you a glass of juice or water or something?”

“No,” she said, standing just inside the door. “I won’t be here that long. The Uber is waiting for me.”

She was cold and unfeeling, but I didn’t know how I could have expected anything else. After everything that we had been through, after how I had reacted to the baby, I would be stupid to think she had miraculously found it in her heart to think about me fondly. I shut the door and walked inside, standing in front of her. It was obvious she didn’t want to sit down, or even move from where she was standing.

“Cassie, I want to first say—”

“No,” she said, cutting me off. “I want to make it clear to you from the start of this that we cannot go back to seeing each other. It’s too late for that. Too much damage has been done.”

“But I thought—”

“You thought what?” she asked, looking me in the eye. “That you would send some texts and calls and everything would be magically better?”

“Of course not,” I said. “But I thought you would at least hear me out.”

“I heard you loud and clear yesterday,” she said. “I heard you when your first response was how this child was not in your plan. I’m sorry I ruined your life, Scott. It was never my intention, but I have taken the hint, and I won’t continue to ruin anything else for you.”

“You didn’t ruin my life, Cassie,” I said. “I can make everything work. Plans are made to be changed, and I can change mine for the both of you. I want to change them for the both of you.”

“When a girl finds out she is pregnant, whether it is planned or not, it is somewhat of a mind fuck,” she said. “There are so many emotions running through her mind and so many hormones rushing through her body. She dreams of having that moment where she reveals she is pregnant and the man she loves scoops her into his arms and cries with her. It’s a stupid fucking dream, and more than not, the reaction is the opposite. I just can’t forgive you for your reaction. It isn’t something that can just be erased from my mind because you want it to be.”

“God,” I said, pulling my hands through my hair. “I didn’t mean what I said. It was a knee-jerk response. It came out like word vomit.”

“Then it was exactly what your brain was thinking,” she said. “It’s okay to not want a baby, but this child is going to come, and I don’t need your lack of support stressing me out. I need to know that I am firm in my life and that this toxic thing we have stops.”

“Cassie, please, you don’t mean that,” I said. “It’s not toxic, just a bit complicated.”

“That may be true,” she said, shaking her head, “but it doesn’t change what has happened up to this point.”

“But I love you,” I said, grabbing her arms.

“Just stop,” she said, pulling away. “Just stop, please. Look, the ball is in your court as far as how much or how little you want to be in this child’s life. I will text you when I find out the dates for all my appointments, and you are more than welcome to come. When the baby is born, you can be there in the delivery room if you would like. It is your child after all. As far as you and I are concerned, it’s over. We can’t be together, not like this. I have to go.”

I wanted to stop her, but I could see in her eyes that there was no changing her mind. I watched her walk out the door, down the driveway, and get into the Uber waiting out front. I stood in the doorway staring at the car until it disappeared around the corner. I shut the door and leaned against it, sighing loudly and shaking my head. What a disaster. Nothing went as I had wanted it to, absolutely nothing. I pulled my phone from my pocket and called Landon.

“Hey, dude,” he said.

“Hey, it’s a 911. I need you to meet me at Murphy’s for drinks,” I said.

“I’ll be there in ten.”

I grabbed my keys and headed over to the bar, pulling up at the same time as Landon. He smiled at me as we walked inside, my thoughts swirling around in my head. We sat down at the bar, and I ordered us both a beer and a shot.

“It’s funny you called me,” he said. “I’ve actually been thinking about your ideas a lot lately.”

“My ideas?” I said, trying to get through the conversation.

“Yeah, for the hardware store,” he said. “You know, the ones you have been working on since you were a teenager.”

“Oh yeah?” I said.

“Yeah. I mean, my job has been pissing me off something fierce lately,” he said. “I went into accounting thinking it would be this awesome job at some big firm with rich clients, but all they give me is quarterly taxes for the self-employed. My boss is a complete idiot, and he doesn’t want to even hear me out about taking larger cases. It’s not going anywhere. I’m not part of the club. I haven’t made any real decisions about your ideas, but it’s definitely something that has been on my mind.”

“That’s cool,” I said, barely listening.

“Okay, man, what’s up? I just told you I was thinking about investing in your ideas, and you are acting like I told you what I had for dinner,” he said.

“Cassie is pregnant,” I said. “She told me over a dinner that her best friend put together to get us in the same room and talking.”

“Holy shit,” he said with wide eyes.

“And do you know what my response was? I was stupid and said, ‘Well, this wasn’t part of my plan.’ Which you can obviously guess did not go over very well with her. I was in fucking shock. I didn’t mean it that way, but now she is refusing to even think about a relationship and tells me that I can be there as much as I want for the baby but not her.”

“Dude, I am still hung up on the part where you are going to be a father,” he said. “That poor kid is going to have your genes.”

“Come on, man, be serious,” I said, shaking my head. “My whole future is hanging in the balance here. Cassie is the love of my life. How can I just walk away from that? How can I co-parent with someone I know should be with me as a family?”

“You have got to play this on her timecard, man,” he said. “You can’t keep pushing with words. You have to show her.”

“How do I do that?”

“Well, for starters, you show up to every single appointment,” he said. “This is going to show her that you are serious about wanting to be in their lives. It’s going to show her that you truly are a good guy. She didn’t stop loving you, but it’s going to take time for her to trust you, and trust isn’t built on words.”

“You’re right,” I said, taking my shot. “You’re absolutely right. I need to be there every step of the way and show her instead of continuing to have talks that just go in circles. Thank you, man.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” he said, tapping his beer against mine. “But seriously, you are going to be a dad. Congratulations.”