I THINK I’VE driven a full circle around this damn state today, just needing to think, but it’s been hours now, and I need to see Gavin. I never leave him for a night, never mind almost an entire day at this point.

Pulling into Hunter’s driveway, I see Olive and Lana standing at the door, jumping up and down with excitement, waving at me to hurry up. I jump out of the truck and jog up to the front door. “What are my favorite nieces so excited about right now?” I ask them.

“Gavin is about to take a step! Hurry up! I’ve been working with him since I got home from school, and I think he’s almost got it.” Olive and Lana have pretty much been big sisters to Gavin since the day he was born. Whenever they’re together, they spend every minute with him, trying to teach him new tricks, as I’m told.

“No kidding?” I exclaim, racing through the house to find him. We’ve been waiting for Gavin to walk for months now, and I was starting to get a little worried considering he’s sixteen months old. I thought all kids were walking by now, but I guess he’s just been taking his sweet old time.

When I get into the family room, I find Gavin holding onto the side of the couch with a big toothy grin. “Da-da!” He bounces his knees with excitement and waves his hand at me.

“Gavin, ready? Let’s show Da-da what we’ve been practicing,” Olive says.

Olive holds up the remote, which is Gavin’s favorite toy—no surprise there since he is my kid—and stands a few feet away from him with her arms out stretched.

Gavin reaches for it and I find myself rooting him on, pleading to experience this first with him right now. I need some good at this moment. I kneel down and wave him forward. “Come on, buddy!”

“You can do it, Gavin!” Lana squeals. Gavin adores the excitement the girls constantly offer him.

A giggle rumbles through his belly and he takes a step, and another, and another, then three more before falling into Olive, knocking her backwards as they both roll over laughing. The sight of Gavin taking those first steps both bends and breaks my heart at the same time. “Call Aunt Tori!” Olive shouts. “She’ll want to see this.”

Olive’s words unintentionally act as the final straw in my day, and I fall backwards, trying my hardest to keep my shit together, but suddenly, I have no control over keeping myself intact. I’m falling apart.

My breathing feels labored, yet weak at the same time. I hear Olive calling my name; although, my name sounds like she’s calling it from a mile away. Tears fill my eyes and spill out over my cheeks, blurring my vision…I’m fucking lost. I didn’t want a kid for two reasons—one was the fear of losing him or her again, and the second was because of what I watched Hunter and Olive go through for the first few years of Olive’s life after Ellie died. I refused to ever put myself in a situation that could turn out like theirs; yet, it seems I did.

Here I am…one fear is invalid, the other true and real. Olive runs past me, struggling with Gavin in her arms, and it feels like only seconds before I feel hands on my shoulders. They pull me up and dump me on the couch, or I collapse into the couch—not sure which happened first.

“AJ,” Hunter says, forcing his face in front of mine, slapping my cheeks and shaking me. “Snap out of it, bro.”

I try to breathe harder, but it’s like I can’t. It feels as if I’m trying to breathe through a straw. I close my eyes and swallow hard, trying to calm myself down. What the hell is happening to me right now? I don’t do this shit. I don’t get worked up or upset like this.

“I’m sorry,” I say breathlessly.

“What the hell is going on, man? Charlotte, can you get AJ a glass of water?” Hunter yells.

Charlotte liked Tori when I first brought her home to meet the family, but that may have been because Charlotte had only been a part of Hunter’s life for a year. After they got married, the comments started to come out. Charlotte doesn’t sugarcoat things. She’s very forward and sometimes a little overbearing. I love her. She’s my sister-in-law, but the honesty has been too much sometimes. Though, if I had listened to more of her honesty, maybe I would have opened my eyes wider, a little sooner.

“What happened?” Charlotte asks, worried, as she enters the room with a glass of water.

“I don’t know,” Hunter says, taking the water from her hand. “Drink this.” He hands me the glass and sits down next to me on the couch.

“AJ,” Charlotte says. “Are you okay? Jesus, you’re in tears. The man who doesn’t cry. This must be bad.”

I’ve kept my issues with Tori to myself for the most part. Hunter has an idea, especially since he’s been the one to help me the most when I’ve needed it, but I kept the details from everyone. Mostly due to the fact that they might judge me, and I haven’t been ready to hear their judgments on my life.

“There’s so much; I don’t know where to start.” On top of everything else I’m feeling, there’s guilt too. Hunter and I have always been very open with each other, and I’m not sure how he’s going to take all of my truths right now. “I’ve been living a lie.”

“Girls, take Gavin into the living room and play with him,” Hunter tells them.

“But I want to know what’s wrong,” Olive says, sounding so much older than she is. That’s Olive—a little adult who has to be a part of everything or the world might end, at least that’s how she seems to see it.

“Now,” he says, pointing to the other end of the house.

Olive groans before she and Lana help Gavin back up and take him in the other room.

“Spill it,” Hunter says.

Charlotte stands up and pats Hunter on the shoulder. “Let me know if either of you need anything.”

“You can stay,” I tell her. “It’s best if I don’t have to say this twice, or make anyone else have to repeat it for that matter. I’m still going to have to tell Mom and Dad and that’s going to suck as it is.” Charlotte seems a bit surprised to hear I want her to stay and sits down on the sofa across from us.

I run my hands back and forth over my knees, feeling sick to my stomach about unleashing all of this shit on them.

I try again to take another deep breath, and there’s a little more space in my lungs now, so I take another deep breath, and I take one again and again, until I’m able to close my eyes with an attempt to focus on what I need to say.

“Maybe start with why Cammy showed up out of the blue,” Hunter says.

“That’s only part of it,” I tell him. “This is bad, Hunt. Real bad.”

“Did someone die?” he asks weakly.

“No.” I breathe in and out a couple more times before I finally open my eyes and look Hunter right in the face. “Cammy had a baby senior year.”

“Yeah, I know,” he laughs. “The whole town knew.” He says it casually, but then I see a shift in his expression.

“The baby was mine, Hunt.”

“Holy shit,” Charlotte pipes in. Thank you, Charlotte.

Hunter leans back into the couch and runs his fingers through his hair. “Wow.”

“I thought—didn’t she give the baby up for adoption or something?”

“Yeah, I was against it but I had no say. Her parents forced her to give the baby up.”

“Where is this conversation going, AJ?” The worry is starting to set in, and I don’t know what possibilities are going through his head in this moment, but I can tell his thoughts are bouncing off every corner of his mind.

“The people who adopted our daughter were killed in a plane crash, so our daughter took it upon herself to find Cammy.”

“Cameron,” he corrects me. Clearly the two of them have chatted. “The plane crash that killed eight people a few weeks ago?” He’s focused on the wrong part of this right now and it’s making this harder.

“Yes. Anyway, Cam—she came here to find me. She came to introduce me to our daughter. I have a daughter, Hunter. She’s thirteen. She’s amazing. And she’s mine. Cammy’s figuring out the whole legal process to retain our parental rights.”

Charlotte’s mouth is agape. Hunter’s is about the same as he runs his fingers through his hardly there beard. “Shit.”

“It’s not shit,” I tell him.

“Why—what—um…what’s her name?” He asks.

“Ever,” I say, feeling slightly better about this conversation now that half of it is out on the table.

“That’s beautiful,” Charlotte says. “Where are they right now?”

“Figuring things out in a hotel room downtown.”

“Why are they there?” Hunter asks. “They can stay here. We have the space. God, they don’t need to be in a hotel room right now. I mean, I can obviously assume Tori doesn’t want them staying with you guys at the moment—that’s gotta be awkward, but we’re happy to help.”

I don’t know what look ends up taking over my face when he says that, but in response, there’s a shift in his eyes and he swallows hard. “So, that’s the other part of…this,” I say.

“This?” Hunter asks.

“Tori had another episode last night,” I explain.

Hunter lowers his head into his hands and rests his elbows over his knees. “No,” he sighs. “That is not what either of you need right now.”

“It was pretty bad. I lied when I said we were going out to dinner last night. I just used that as an excuse so you would watch Gavin.”

“Don’t worry about that,” he says. “What—um—what’s going on now, then?”

My breaths quicken again. This situation has me so worked up I can’t even control my own damn lungs anymore. “I had to call an ambulance, and all that shit. Then I went down there first thing this morning to see how she was doing.”

“And?” He lifts his head from his hands. “How is she doing?” I reach into my pocket and toss the tiny fucking envelope at him. He takes a second to open it and peek inside before handing it to Charlotte. Hunter’s eyes close and his head falls back. “Shit.”

“She’s moving to Idaho, to find her estranged father, and so she can get away from me and Gavin. Evidently, we are the triggers to her suicidal episodes.”

He laughs with a strangled sound. “That’s the most ludicrous thing I’ve ever heard. Tori can’t just leave like that, but—after the way I’ve seen her act these past couple of years…I don’t know what I should think.”

“Yeah, I don’t know what to think either,” I tell him.

“What mother—” Hunter stands up and his face fills with redness. “What mother could voluntarily leave her child? She’s just going through a hard time. God, that doesn’t mean you thrown in the damn towel, though. She can’t—No, she can’t do this.” I knew this would hurt him. He’s as close to Gavin as I am with Olive, and there isn’t much of a difference between the love I have for the two of them. They’re both my blood. Hunter grieved for Olive—he still grieves for Olive not having her birth mother. Now, he’s going to have to do the same with Gavin, just like I will. “What the hell could have caused this?” He’s shouting now, and Charlotte stands up to calm him down, like she oftentimes has to when things get out of control.

“She had a traumatic childhood. Her mother hung herself and her sister—she watched her sister die days after her mother died. Apparently, she blames herself. It’s why she never wanted to have children.”

“People say that all the time. It doesn’t mean they abandon their kid if they accidentally put one on this earth,” he argues.

I know this. I know all of this. I didn’t want a kid; now I couldn’t live without him. I watch the motions of anger, resentment, understanding, and hurt work through Hunter’s tell-all face. It’s minutes before he takes a deep breath and sits back down. “This is heavy, bro. It’s a lot to take in. A lot.”

“Why haven’t you told me any of this? You know I’m always here for you. I feel like these are things brothers share, you know?”

I knew the hurt emotion would last the longest with him. “I don’t know. I was scared. In both situations.”

Hunter continues running his hands up and down his face while breathing in and out loudly. “Okay, we can do this. We can handle this.” This is part of the reason I kept things to myself. There is no we. It’s a me. Not that I don’t appreciate the support I know he would give me in a heartbeat, but I have to figure this all out.

“I appreciate you saying that, but there isn’t much to figure out.”

“Tori is gone right now, maybe permanently, who knows, and Cammy is moving back to Connecticut so we can share some kind of custody with our daughter.”

“How does this all happen in one week?” Charlotte asks.

“One thing might have provoked the other…” I say, feeling guilty for causing Tori’s episode, but at the same time, a little thankful I was able to not only stop her from hurting herself this time, but also find out the truth now rather than in years to come when I’m even more miserable than I’ve been for the past twelve months or so.

“I was wondering,” Hunter says. “Crap, I don’t even know what to tell you.”

“That’s where I’m at right now too.”

“I’m so sorry, AJ. I’d like to hope that Tori explored all of her options before making this decision. I want to believe that, and maybe if you can believe that too, it’ll be a little easier to digest,” Charlotte says, clearly trying to lighten the reality of what’s happening. “Regardless, you know we will help you as much or as little as you need, right? We’re a family and you’ve always been there for us, especially Hunter.”

I’d love to agree with Charlotte, but I’m not sure she even totally agrees with what she’s saying; not with the sickened look on her face. At the end of this, wherever that may be, I don’t think I’ll ever truly be able to digest what is happening.

“Charlotte, can you give us a minute,” Hunter tells her.

“Of course,” Charlotte says as she stands up from the couch, and leaves the room. “I already know what you’re going to say, Hunter,” she says, her voice carrying through the center of the house.

Probably looking as confused as I feel, I raise my brows with question, waiting for him to spit it out. “Dude,” he says. “Maybe I’m going to hell for saying this today of all days, but I have to say it: Tori has made her decisions, and you have to focus on Gavin and what’s going to happen with Cameron and Ever. It’s a lot to take in all at once,” he says with a sigh. “God, I knew things were going to be rough the other day when your hot ex-girlfriend—Cameron showed up. When she asked about you, her face lit up like fireworks. She said she missed you and looked more than a little disappointed when I told her you were married with a kid.” Hunter runs his hands down the sides of his face, likely only feeling an ounce of the frustration that I feel. “I hate to even ask, but does she know what’s going on with Tori right now?”

“Yeah she knows,” I say, feeling guilty for that too. “Anyway, I’m glad we’ve had this talk.”

“AJ,” he says sternly. “You’ve been miserable for almost two years now. I give you an incredible amount of credit for sticking by your wife’s side while she transitioned into a person you didn’t know, and into someone who didn’t care enough about her own life, never mind yours. You’ve taken care of Gavin almost single-handedly, and you’ve had bags under your eyes for a year and a half. You haven’t made one joke, which is so unlike you, and you’ve hardly cracked a smile in months. I miss my brother, and while what’s going on with Tori is awful, and it’s even worse for Gavin, there’s a small part of me that feels grateful for the fact that you might get a little bit of yourself back. You deserve to be happy too.”

“He’s not going to have a mother,” I grunt with anger.

“He has one hell of a father, and we both know, this isn’t the end of your life—I think you can take that from me.”

“I don’t know,” I argue, though I’m not sure there’s much of an argument to be had here.

“Do you want to fight to get her back?” Hunter asks. “Do you want to try to make something work that may never have worked in the first place? I mean, do you think it would work if you did fight for her?”

I find myself staring through Hunter, searching for the answer to his question.

“She’s my wife,” I tell him, copping out and away from his question.

“What about you?” Hunter asks.

“I guess I need to figure that part out,” I tell him, standing up from the couch.

“Will you be at work tomorrow?” he asks.

“Yeah, with Gavin in tow.”

“I can take care of him tomorrow afternoon, if that helps,” Charlotte yells in.

“Didn’t she leave so she wouldn’t have to listen to me?” Hunter laughs.

“Women always make a point of acting like they don't want to hear shit, but they’re always eavesdropping. Always.”

“That’s for damn sure,” Hunter agrees.

“Very funny!” Charlotte says.

“Yeah, leave Gavin here tomorrow. We’ll figure things out, AJ. Don’t worry, okay?”

I nod and continue out into the living room where I collect Gavin’s things. He’s jumping all over Olive, blowing raspberries on her face, and she’s eating it up. “We’re going to get going, Ollie-Lolly and Lana-Banana.”

The girls stand up and give me a bear hug. “I’m sorry,” Olive says. I’m not going to ask what she’s sorry about because I know eavesdropping runs in this house like a viral disease.

I look down at her with a raised brow. “It’s a good thing I love you, kiddo.”

“Do I get to meet her?” Olive asks quietly. “Ever. She’s my cousin, right?”

I nod my head, trying to avoid the grin growing across my mouth. “Soon, I’m sure.”

A quiet, “Yes!” escapes her lips and she dances around in a small circle. This girl would like it if our family were a hundred people deep…just like Ellie.

“You are your mother’s daughter. That’s for sure,” I say, messing up the curls on top of her head.

“Uncle!” she shrieks. “Don’t mess up my hair.”

With Gavin in my arms, I take less than two steps out of the house when my phone starts to ring. When it rings now, my stomach turns into a hard rock, fearful of who is on the other end, and with what kind of news. Did Tori get her way? Is it Cammy? Does she want to see me? Did she change her mind?

Relief does set in, however, when I see it is Cammy on the other end.

“Hey,” I answer.

“Hey,” she responds. “Where are you?”

“Breaking all sorts of news to Hunter,” I say through weak laughter. “Just leaving his house with Gavin now.”

“Can you come back to the hotel? There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

Once again, the lump in my throat returns, and my lungs turn into a brick of cement for the millionth time today.