Chapter 32

Alissa

 

 

What a damn Fourth of July. It had started out so perfectly, and now, I was walking into my house, listening to the fireworks going off around me, and wondering what the hell had just happened. I went straight inside and jumped in the shower, trying to calm my aching heart. It was almost too much to bear, thinking about the fact that I just left Ryan’s ex-wife alone with him in the house, and after she made her intentions very clear. Being jealous wasn’t going to help anything, though, and the last thing I wanted to do was get in the middle of that. When I got out of the shower, Ryan was calling, so I took a deep breath and answered.

“Hey,” I said kindly. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “I’m so sorry that all of that happened with you there. The last thing I wanted was for our Fourth to be ruined by Christina. The fireworks sucked without you by my side.”

“I know,” I replied. “But I couldn’t stay there with that situation. It was too much.”

“I understand,” he said with sadness in his voice.

“Did you two talk?”

“Yeah,” he groaned. “I don’t know what to think about anything anymore. I don’t love her, you have to know that, but she has now put me in another impossible situation with my little girl. I am the bad guy to Kayla if I don’t agree to this, and I am the bad guy to you if I do.”

“You need to take me out of the equation,” I said. “You can’t make a decision on your and Kayla’s future based on your feelings for me.”

“Why can’t I?” he asked angrily. “You were my future until an hour ago.”

“Look,” I said. “Stop worrying about making any immediate decisions. This is on your time, not hers. Text me tomorrow, and try to get some sleep.”

“All right,” he said. “Have sweet dreams.”

“You too,” I replied, hanging up the phone.

When I was done in the bathroom, I went back to the kitchen, made a hot cup of tea, and called my sister, needing someone to talk to. When I heard her voice, I wanted to burst into tears, but I knew that wouldn’t solve anything. She was still awake, just getting home from watching the fireworks with Mom.

“You’re home?” she asked, surprised. “I figured you would crash at Ryan’s.”

“Yeah, well, it’s kind of hard to when your boyfriend’s ex-wife shows up at the house, begging for another chance,” I said bitterly.

“Wait, what? Christina came there?”

“Yeah, right before the fireworks.” I sighed. “And she wants to come back home.”

“Oh, God, Alissa, I’m so sorry,” she gasped. “I mean Ryan put her in her place, right?”

“Not exactly,” I said, walking into the living room and sitting down. “He didn’t want to upset Kayla on her birthday, so he let her stay. He had a talk with her, and when he called me a few minutes ago, he didn’t sound as sure as I hoped he would.”

“No, no, no,” Bella said angrily. “That woman is a bad person. She doesn’t deserve to be anywhere around them. You put your foot down, right? I mean, you told Ryan that he was supposed to be with you, not her, right?”

“Bella, it’s not that simple.” I sighed. “As much as I love Ryan, I love Kayla, too, and that little girl will never choose me over her mother, nor should she have to be forced to make that choice.”

“She is eight, Alissa,” Bella said. “She doesn’t understand any of that.”

“I know.” I sighed. “I’m just afraid that I am destroying a chance for a family to come back together, for a girl to have her mother back.”

When I was a little girl, growing up without my father was extremely painful. There were times as a child I just wanted to be with my daddy, to feel his arms around me and to hear his comforting voice. It was so extremely painful when I couldn’t just walk into the other room and find him there. My mother did the best she could to help me understand, which I did as an adult, but it was really hard as a child, and it affected me on many levels. Divorce was really taxing on a child, and it never made any sense to them. I mean, how could it? To a child, love is easy. You just give it and take it in return. The people that are closest to you in your life don’t hold back from loving you, at least not normally. In Kayla’s case, her mother did hold back, but if she started new with them, Kayla wouldn’t even remember it when she got older.

I truly felt that when you loved someone, you were supposed to make decisions based on what was best for them. You were supposed to protect them and be there for them, even if it meant that you yourself weren’t able to reap the benefits of it. I would never in a million years do anything for Christina, but I would try to make the choices that I thought were best for Kayla. I would give anything if I could make sure that Kayla didn’t feel even a second of what it felt like when I was a child yearning for my father. She had already felt too much at such a young age, and I didn’t want her to continue to go through that, especially if I had a say in the situation. This was a huge thing for me, and I was really torn on which way to lean.

“You know what it was like when Dad and Mom divorced,” I said. “You saw me go through childhood yearning for him.”

“Yes, but you didn’t know that it was really bad for you,” she said.

“Would that have mattered?” I asked. “Would that have taken away the pain or made it any harder to go through my adolescence without my dad there to share it with? I know you didn’t have as hard of a time as I did. But thoughts of that hurt are very vivid in my mind when I think back on growing up. I may not have realized he was a scumbag, but even knowing now doesn’t take away the wish that I could have figured that out on my own and grown up with him close.”

“Alissa, you are being way too sensitive about this,” Bella said. “You can’t apply your situation with Dad to this one.”

“Why not? Isn’t it the same? The biggest difference is Dad didn’t come back and want to be part of our lives, so we didn’t have a choice in the matter. I can’t be the woman that stands in Kayla’s way. I couldn’t live with that choice.”

“So that’s it?” she asked angrily. “You are just going to walk away from this man and his daughter? The two people that you love more than anyone you have loved your entire life. You are going to let Christina win.”

“This isn’t about her,” I said angrily in return. “This isn’t about winning or losing for us. The only person that truly wins or loses here is Kayla. I’m sure Ryan won’t be the only man that I fall in love with, but Christina will be her only mother.”

“That’s not true,” Bella replied. “One, he may be the one, and you are walking away, and two, there is no reason Christina can’t be a mother from outside of that house. Kayla will be happy either way.”

“I’ve made up my mind,” I said resolutely.

“Well, you are an idiot, Alissa, and you are throwing away something really good for a really bad reason,” she said.

I got off the phone with Bella and took a deep breath, knowing that I needed to call Ryan right then, or I would second guess myself. I dialed his number and sat there, my hands shaking in my lap. At first, he didn’t answer, but as soon as I put the phone down, it started to ring.

“Hello?”

“Hey,” he said. “Sorry, I was checking on Kayla. You okay?”

“Yeah.” I sighed. “I’ve just been thinking about everything.”

“Me too,” he said. “I can’t sleep. This is an impossible situation.”

“I don’t think it is,” I replied.

“What?”

“Look, Ryan, I love you very much, you know that,” I said holding my breath. “And I love Kayla even more than I ever thought I could love a child. It’s my opinion that I think you should give it a try again with Christina, if for nothing more than Kayla and your peace of mind that you did everything you could.”

“Alissa,” he said. “That is very big of you, but I don’t think you really mean it.”

“It doesn’t matter how I personally feel about it,” I said. “I know what it is like to grow up without one of my parents, and as much as I want to say that pain goes away when you are an adult and able to understand everything better, I can’t. It still hurts today that I didn’t have the chance to grow up with my father because of the divorce. As an adult, I know what kind of man he was, and I know I was better off without him, but that doesn’t take away that pain. I can’t in good conscience lie to you about that, nor can I sit back and let that happen to Kayla because I want to be selfish. This time, selfish is something I don’t have the luxury of being because a child is involved, and I want what is best for her.”

We sat there talking for several minutes, and he listened to everything that I said. I could tell that part of him wanted to fight me on this, but I could also tell that the other side of him knew that I was right. The calm and even keel of his tone cut right to the core of me, and even though I knew I was doing the right thing, I wanted him to scream and fight for me. I wanted the romantic gesture so badly right then, but I knew just as much as he did that this situation was not the right one for a selfish choice. I learned very quickly after falling in love with Kayla that a parent didn’t have the luxury of making selfish choices, especially when it had the ability to really affect Kayla long term. I had to be resolute and strong in my choices, and I knew that it was not only a good thing he wasn’t fighting me, but a sign as to where his mind was as well.

After a few more minutes, everything that needed to be said was said, and I sat there for a moment, quiet. I wasn’t sure what else I needed to say, and I knew that the conversation was drawing to a close. I could feel my throat closing up and tears pulling at the sides of my eyes, but I couldn’t let Ryan know that. It would be unfair to him. He needed to think I was fine and make his decision based on what he thought was best, not affected by feelings for me.

“I’ll talk to you later, okay?” I asked.

“All right,” he said sadly.

I hung up the phone before he could say anything more. As the screen of my cell touched down on the coffee table, I burst into tears, pulling my knees to my chest and sobbing into my hands. That was the hardest thing I had ever done, and I hoped to God it was the right choice. I had just let go of the man I loved and the family I wanted the most.