Ring, ring… ring, ring… ring, ring…

I stare at the phone screen, trying to work up the courage to answer the call. This is the last person that I thought I would hear from today, so this call is absolutely terrifying. After everything that happened earlier, I thought that we were set with where we stood on things, but now… well, now I’m not so sure.

“Aren’t you going to get that?” Mom asks me curiously while making a cup of tea. “Who is it?”

I stare up at her through my eyelashes with wide, panicked eyes. “It’s him, I whisper. “Kade.”

“Oh…” She doesn’t know what to say either, which is probably because I explained the entire argument to her just after it happened. She knows how furious Kade is about me keeping the secret. “I see…”

“What should I do?” I beg her. “Should I answer? What if he yells at me some more?”

“He might do,” she replies, sounding as helpless as I feel. “But he might be calling to apologize. As scary as it is, I suppose you do owe him the chance to say whatever he needs to say. Even if you don’t like it.”

I nod, agreeing with her even if I really don’t want to and I head towards the front door. I need to be alone when I take this call, since I don’t know what I’m going to face. I need the privacy of outside. I don’t hit the answer button until the cold air washes over me and it makes me absolutely wide awake.

“He… hello?” I stammer. At first, I don’t hear anything but a lot of background noise. “Hello?”

“Hello? Lucie? Is that… that you?” My heart sinks, he sounds wasted. I’ve been getting myself all sad and worked up all day and he’s been out partying like he used to all the time. “I need to talk to you.”

As he hiccups, I roll my eyes. I thought that he’d changed, that was the whole point of this. He was supposed to be more grown up and better. It seems that I’ve been duped again, led o believe that he’s a much better man and it was all to get me into bed again. As soon as it started to get heavy, he reverted to the real him.

“Don’t you think that’s something that we should do in the morning? When you are sober…”

“Oh no, don’t be like that. I’m not… erm, I am not in the place where I will still be a dick. I get… understand what I did earlier was stupid. I should have…” He trails off, and for a moment I think he’s gone. “Oh, yeah, sorry, Lucie, what was I talking about then? Something I’m supposed to have done, right?”

“Kade, this isn’t something that we should be talking about while you’re drunk in a bar. This is a child’s life that we’re talking about here. You might not like what I’ve done, but I only wanted to protect him.”

“You don’t understand.” Clearly the words that I just spoke didn’t go in at all. He seems to be at that drunken stage where things just wash over you. “I meant it when I said that I love you.”

I slide my eyes closed, unable to deal with that part of things right now. I need to work out what his intensions are with Logan first. His love for me can’t be the most important thing anymore. I might like it to be, but it isn’t. It’s all about my son. The sooner he realizes that, the better for all of us.

“This isn’t about that, though, is it?” I let one single tear roll down my cheek. An intense feeling of sadness threatens to destroy me. “And if you think it is then I really can’t speak to you because I have another priority.”

“No, I know, this is about… this is about Logan, I know that, of course I know that. It’s just… it isn’t easy to find out like this and I know it must have been hard for you too, but you got to be there from the start.”

“This needs to be something that we talk about face to face and while you are sober…”

I’m disappointed that he’s acted in this way and that he’s contacted me to let me know that he’s being an idiot. It isn’t right. Surely, he understands, even through his intoxicated brain that this isn’t right. Is he doing it to upset me further? To let me know how little he respects and cares about me? I don’t get it.

“No, no, I need to talk about it now,” he replies breezily. “I didn’t get to say what I wanted to before.”

“You said plenty, thank you very much,” I say bluntly. “I think you made your feelings very clear.”

“Yeah, okay, so I wasn’t the best.” He shrugs as if this makes it okay. “I was a bit thick, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t get to talk now, does it? I should still get to… get to… get to…”

He’s forgotten where he’s going with this, again. This conversation is getting a little tiresome if I’m honest. I already know that it can’t end up in a positive place, so I don’t know why I keep letting it happen. I need to find a way to politely put a stop to it so that we can have a much more civil conversation tomorrow.

“If you would like to come around in the morning, then I will have all the time you like…”

“I won’t be there tomorrow.” His tone is a bit bratty. “I’m staying in a motel tonight.”

I screw up my nose in confusion. “A motel? Why? Who with?” I suppose it isn’t really any of my business, I’m the one who’s done all the lying here, but I still want to know. A lot depends on it.

“Who with? I don’t know, probably by myself. It isn’t like I get a lot of offers these days.”

“Offers?” I actually feel a bit sick at his words. Is he actually being serious? He’s making comments about his lack of sex life while out drinking and staying in a motel God knows where. Talk about no respect.

“Oh, I don’t know, you know what I mean, don’t you? Yeah, you know.” I don’t know, but I’m not in the mood to get into an in depth conversation with him about this. All I really want to do is get him off the phone. “Anyway, I’m going to keep away while my head is all a mess, but then I’ll come and see Logan…”

“Woah, wait.” I need to put a stop to this before he ends up doing something really dumb. “You can’t come and see Logan, not until we’ve sorted this out. I need to know that you’re not going to dip in and out of his life. When you come into it, I want to know that it’s going to be forever. It has to be done right.”

My forehead burns with anger. I’m hot headed and crazy, but Kade needs to stop acting like this. He cannot fuck with a child’s life at whim. He can feel however he wants about me, but it’s different with Logan.

“You shouldn’t keep me away from him.” His tone turns grave now. It strikes a horrible coldness into my heart. “Now that I know about him, I want to be in his life. I want to be… hold on a moment.”

He talks to someone and I soon notice that it’s a woman’s voice. Alone, in a motel, my ass. He really is back to his old tricks, he’s out with other women, moving on as quickly from me like he does every single time. I should have known that he hasn’t changed. I really wish that I’d kept my mouth shut. As she giggles and he talks to her in what sounds like a muffled, flirty voice, my anger bursts off the scale. Again, I’m the one left breaking my heart over him, and again, he doesn’t give a shit at all.

“Lucie?” he finally comes back onto the phone. “I’m sorry about that, I have to…”

“Fuck you, Kade,” I spit down the line. “Fuck you to hell. You will always be this way. It’s time that I learn.” Embarrassment crashes through me, at the same speed as rage. “Never, ever again.”

Then I hang up the phone and I learn forward to clutch onto my knees. I’m panting, breathlessly, completely stripped of everything from that call. He’s taken every scrap of self dignity that I’d built up and now I have nothing all over again. I’m back to being the sad, lonely girl, sitting on the bathroom floor, clutching onto a positive pregnancy test and knowing that my life is going to change forever.

It takes me a while, but eventually I build up the confidence to go inside. Mom waits for me, she stares at me expectantly, but all I can do is shake my head. I communicate that everything is still a shit mess without actually having to say those dreaded words. Then, the tears really start to roll.

“Oh, my goodness, Lucie.” Mom wraps me up in her arms. “I know that this is a real shame, but just try to think of it as not much changing. You’ve don’t it on your own so far, and you’ve done a great job.”

“But… we weren’t rejected then,” I say while shaking with sobs. “Now, we are. Now, he doesn’t want us.”

Before, things could change as well. I always had the knowledge that things might be different in the long run, when I finally worked up the courage to tell him, but there isn’t any coming back from this. Now, I know that nothing will ever change again. Kade can tell me that he wants to see Logan when he’s drunk, but his actions speak far louder than his words. I’m sure that he’ll be gone before long.

Poor Logan, poor, poor Logan. I have let him down and I feel horrible for it.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Mom continues. “But you need to find that inner strength because it’s got you to this point. You can’t let him defeat you. You didn’t before and you can’t now.”

I nod and agree, acting the part, but inside I don’t feel like I can pull through once more. It was so challenging the first time, he hardest thing that I’ve ever had to do. I would like to think that I can again, but I can’t be sure. I don’t feel like I have any steel left inside of me now.

I leave Mom and I make my way up the stairs, but not all the way to my bedroom. Instead I go to Logan’s room and I perch on the edge of his bed, watching my little angel sleep. I love him so much, with all of my being, I want to give him happiness, I want to give him everything, I want him to have the family that he deserves. I think that’s what kills me the most, that I can’t give him that most basic thing.

“I’m sorry, Logan,” I mutter, as if he can hear me. “Sorry for everything. I didn’t think all of this would become such a problem when I had you. I didn’t know that it would mean so much.”

I don’t suppose that it will to him, it isn’t like he’ll know any different, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it myself. I lean down and I kiss him on the forehead, trying not to wake him as I do. He stirs a little, but not much. Thankfully, he’s a heavy sleeper. Something he gets from the father that it seems he’ll never know…