Chapter 36

Alissa

 

 

My feet were propped up on the coffee table, and I was holding my glass of wine to my lips, not actually drinking it at all. My eyes were fixed somewhere in the distance, but my mind was raging all over the place. I couldn’t get Ryan and Kayla off my mind. Ever since I had that conversation with my mother, I kept thinking that I had made a huge mistake not fighting for the two of them.

Everything was so hazy in my mind, but I knew for certain that I was still madly in love with Ryan. Even just the thought of Christina being in that house with them made me sick to my stomach, and the thought of Kayla was breaking my heart. That little girl deserved so much better than what she was being offered. I cared so much for her, just as I always imagined I would for my own children. She deserved to have a mother that loved her, cared about her, and never abandoned her. I knew that if I didn’t fight for them, I would be doing the same thing that Christina did: walking away from them and leaving them on their own. Just thinking about Kayla thinking I had abandoned her brought tears to my eyes, and I could barely handle the emotion.

I sat on the couch, thinking about them for quite a while, trying to understand why Ryan would even consider letting Christina back in their lives. I had to understand that Christina was, whether I liked it or not, Kayla’s mother, and that meant that she had the right to be there for her daughter and care for her how she saw fit. That being said, there was no reason why I couldn’t provide Kayla with love, support, and caring right alongside her. It was obvious from her actions before that she didn’t love Ryan, so there was no reason that this couldn’t be a normal, divorced family situation. I knew that kicking Christina completely out of their lives would be hurtful to Kayla, but it didn’t have to be that way. She could have both.

Christina was only after Ryan because he could provide stability and a good life, but she didn’t care about him more now than she did the day she left him. I couldn’t just let him make that mistake and let her back into his life like that. It was one thing to foster a relationship between Kayla and her mother, but it was completely different to go all in and have another terrible relationship between Ryan and Christina. I just couldn’t let that happen. I loved him too much. I had spent my life hoping to find someone that I cared about as much as I did for Ryan, and now that I was losing it, I was frantic to not let that happen.

I stood up from the couch with a burst of energy that came out of nowhere. I set the wine on the table and pulled my shoes on, deciding that it was now or never. I grabbed my purse and keys and walked out of my house, locking the door behind me and heading straight for my car. I put the keys in the ignition and drove out of my neighborhood, knowing that if I slowed down for even a second, I ran the risk of losing the confidence I had surging through me at that moment. I didn’t want to go one more night without letting Ryan know just how I felt about him. Hopefully, Kayla would be in bed because I wanted to be honest with him without hurting her in any way.

As I drove, I thought about all the things that my mother and sister had told me and realized now that they were right. I wasn’t the homewrecker here. Christina was. If I really loved Ryan, I needed to not give up until it was blatantly obvious that I had lost. I pulled into the neighborhood and around the corner, parallel parking in front of their house. The downstairs lights were on, but the top floor was dark, making me assume that Kayla was fast asleep already. I left my purse in the car and walked quickly up the walk, knocking hard on the door and standing back, feeling my heart beating out of my chest.

I could hear footsteps walking toward the door, and I took a step backward, not wanting to be seen through peephole. As the door opened, I saw Ryan’s face, and I had to push down the urge to jump into his arms and feel his warm embrace. He tilted his head and smiled, a welcoming gaze staring out at me.

“Alissa,” he said with surprise. “What are you doing here?”

I stood there for a moment, unable to speak, running through all the speeches I had played out in my head when I was on the way over here. For some reason, all the gumption and passion were stuck in my chest, and I couldn’t even get a word out. I wanted so badly to tell him how I felt, to make him understand that he was making a mistake by letting Christina back into his life as anything more than Kayla’s mother. I took in a deep breath and put up my finger, letting my heart start to slow down. I needed to calm down, to gather myself so that I didn’t just start talking in riddles like the day outside of his office. I needed to be clear and concise in my feelings so that he knew exactly what was on my mind and I had no regrets if this didn’t turn out like I wanted it to.

“May I come in?” I looked behind him and saw Christina, who seemed more than displeased that I was there.

“Of course,” he said, stepping back and watching me as I walked past.

I glanced up at her and took another deep breath, trying to ignore the fact that she was now standing, her arms crossed in front of her, with no intention of leaving us to talk in private. I was glad she was there, but I was also glad that it was a surprise because had I known, I might not have come over. She needed to hear what I had to say because she needed to understand that she was the person here who was breaking up something amazing. She needed to know I wasn’t trying to take her place as Kayla’s mother, but I did have every intention of making sure she did not get back together with Ryan.

“I didn’t know you were coming by,” he said, glancing up at Christina. “I would have been alone if I had known. We were just discussing the outings for next week before she went back to the hotel.”

“I don’t care about her,” I said, flipping my wrist as I turned to him. “I have nothing to hide, and she can hear every word I have to say to you. None of it should be a surprise to her anyway. That being said, where is Kayla?”

“Oh, she is at my father’s for a few days,” he said with a smile. “She was really missing some grandma and grandpa time.”

“Oh, good,” I said, letting out a deep breath. “Then I can speak freely.”

“Of course,” he said, smiling. “What is going on? Is everyone okay?”

“Everyone but me,” I said, looking up at him and watching his face turn to concern. “Ryan, listen to me. I care so much for you and Kayla, more than I ever thought possible. I love you. That’s no secret, and you did love me before Christina came back in the picture.”

“Alissa, you know love doesn’t just fade away that quickly,” he said, looking up at Christina. “At least, it doesn’t for me.”

“Good,” I said, letting out a deep breath. “I don’t want you to have a relationship with her. She doesn’t love you, and you know that. I want us to be together: you, me, and Kayla. What you decide to do about Christina and Kayla is between the two of you, but I can’t go another day without you knowing how desperately I need you in my life. The two of you have brought my world into color, and I can breathe when I am with you. I don’t know the easy answer to all this, and how to keep Kayla from being hurt again, but I know that I can’t just let you go, either of you. I want to be in your lives, and more than just random holidays and family gatherings. I want us to be together.”

“You have some nerve,” Christina said from the background, forcing me to turn toward her. “You come marching in with your holier-than-thou attitude, preying on two people who were grieving their broken hearts, making them think that they love you, and now, you want to come back and make it worse for them. You are nothing more than a little jezebel, hellbent on breaking up our family. We have history. History that you can’t just undo by walking in here with your fashionable clothing and a swish of your hips. Ryan knows that our family needs stability. That little girl needs me to be here with the both of them, taking care of them. The last thing they need is some little twit thinking she can breeze right through and wreck our home because she put some fresh paint on the walls and tried to make me disappear. Guess what, homewrecker? You can’t get rid of me that easily, and if he really loved you and not me, he would never have let you go.”

While part of me was livid that she had the audacity to speak to me in that tone after I was the one here helping to clean up the devastation she left behind, the other part of me was desperate for both of them to know I was not a homewrecker. I wasn’t trying to erase Christina from Kayla’s life. I was just trying to get back to Ryan where I knew we both belonged. I looked over at Ryan who looked back at me, his eyebrows furrowed. I took a step toward Christina and put up my hands.

“Christina,” I said. “You have to know that is not what I am trying to do. I am not in any way trying to take you out of Kayla’s life or replace you. But you know just as well as I do that you don’t love Ryan. You are just looking for somewhere to land.”

“How dare you?” she asked. “And I know you aren’t trying to replace me. You could never live up to the woman that I am. You are a pathetic little bitch, and you need to take your last-year style, ugly loafers and walk back out of here, forgetting about Kayla and Ryan forever because they are my family. Not yours.”

“Enough,” Ryan yelled loudly, startling me. “Christina, please just shut the fuck up because you are not part of this family. You gave up that right when you signed the divorce papers. And I swear to fucking god, if you ever speak that way to Alissa again, I will throw you out on your ass myself.”

I turned, surprised, and looked at Ryan, whose face began to soften as he turned back to me. Christina was silent in the background, and my heart was racing a million miles a minute. I thought for a moment he was going to yell at me, but relief was definitely present after he put Christina in her place. I stood there waiting. I stood there watching Ryan and hoping that whatever came next didn’t involve telling me to leave. This was where I was supposed to be.