14
NOELLE
It’s been three days since I stormed out of that hotel room with Eli in one hand and my shattered dignity in the other.
Three days of silence.
Three days of trying not to check my phone every five minutes for a message that’ll never come because I blocked them all. Three days of pretending that I don’t care.
The first night, I didn’t sleep. Not even for a second.
Every time I closed my eyes, I imagined Grant and Callum standing in an aisle inside ofMilton’s Hardware and Supply, their faces drawn tight with anger.
I imagined Jared’s smug grin, the one I know he would’ve worn during that entire confrontation.
Not because he was right, but because he knows exactly how to twist the knife to make it hurt most.
And then I imagined the fallout.
The aftermath of them all getting kicked out.
I’d thought maybe, just maybe, I could have a normal life again after the three of them had blown into town.
That the worst was behind me despite my fears that our shared secret would come to live.
That peace wasn’t just a fantasy I used to cling to between police showing up at my door trying to convince me to give Jared another chance because he wasjust misunderstood,and the whispered gossip that I was a bitch for teasing him about fatherhood in the first place.
I thought that what I was rebuilding with the men that I actuallydidwant in my son’s life, the ones I knew would be a better example than the man I thought I wanted years ago, might finally hold.
But that phone call from Jared shattered every illusion I ever held in one single blow.
The second I heard his voice on the other end of the unknown number he called me from, the rage laced with triumph as he spat at me, something inside me buckled.
“Your little heroes showed up today,” he’d said, laughing. “Guess they think they can scare me off. Maybe I should remind them which one of us actually belongs to this town. You know the cops will always be on my side, right?”
That wasn’t just a threat. It wasn’t even a warning shot.
It was a bullet that hit dead center in the middle of every single sliver of hope I’d managed to collect, shattering all of it completely.
I wanted to scream.
Not at him, but at them.
At all three of them for thinking I needed saving.
For acting like I was some fragile thing they could shelter from the storm that was my ex when they went and made things worse by stirring old problems up.
For believing that showing up to his workplace with their fists clenched and their righteous anger would fix what an entire year’s worth of manipulation and threats over custody couldn’t.
It didn’t matter that Jared wasn’t Eli’s biological father.
It didn’t matter that Evelyn’s claims to her “grandson” were bogus.
What mattered was that the people in this town believed I owed both of them something because of my young and naive stupidity to let them into my, and Eli’s, life in the first place.
Truth didn’t matter when my lie is what got me entangled in that mess to begin with.
Underneath all of my anger and frustration sits something else, though.
