It was a dream that I dared to hope for even when the chances of it happening seemed bleak.
Chapter 27
Violet
I flipped the calendar on my wall over to August. I couldn’t believe another month had flown by so quickly. My son would soon be four months old. The following month would mark one year since my life fell apart.
It felt like only moments ago I was happily married to the love of my life, and a lifetime ago all at once. I missed Ridge, the man I was married to before. The one who came and played Daddy all day was wonderful, but I missed the man who used to be my husband. The man who came to my apartment every day was too careful; he walked on eggshells around me like I might break - or he might accidentally be the one to break me again. I hated it.
Two months ago, I finally got to ask my mom why everyone was so angry with her. She sat me down and told me what she did. The whole reason Ridge hadn’t contacted me was because my mom told him I didn’t want him to. Mom explained that she would let him know whenever I changed my mind, but that I didn’t want to hear from him until then. She made it seem like if he didn’t honor my request things would get ugly, and they’d already been ugly enough for me up to that point.
It was awful. I couldn’t even look at my mother when she was done telling me. Mom begged me to forgive her. She claimed that she thought it was the right thing to do, but I didn’t see it that way. So much time had been lost as a result. Time when Ridge and I might have saved our marriage before it was signed away in a divorce. Time where we might have been in a place for me to share my pregnancy with him and where Fiona wouldn’t have had an opening to step in and manipulate my husband - ex-husband. It was getting harder and harder to think of him as my ex.
Maybe that was the reason I lost my mind earlier that day and agreed to go on a date with Justin Archer. I knew him from a party I planned for his mother two years before. He was my age and had hit on me then, but I had been very adamant with the man that I was a married woman and took my vows seriously. Not that he had pushed for anything once he realized I was taken.
Still, I didn’t know what came over me or made me agree to the date. I wasn’t even particularly interested in the man. “DD, help me pick something out,” I whisper-yelled across the room so I wouldn’t wake up my son.
“I don’t want to,” my best friend pouted.
“Why the hell not? Didn’t you say it was about time I started living again? You told me I needed to come to terms with what my future might look like. How am I supposed to do that if I haven’t even attempted to move on yet?”
“Yes, but I didn’t mean going out on dates with strange men.”
I stopped dead in my tracks. “Then what did you mean? Moving on and figuring my life out kind of entails my love life, too, don’t you think?”
“Are you seriously going to date another man?”
“I’m not dating anyone else, DD.”
“Come on, Vi. You spend every day with your ex-husband.”
“My ex-husband is the key part there. He is here for Liam, not me.”
“Funny, those fresh roses on the kitchen island seem to say otherwise.”
“He was being nice because I’m the mother of his child.”
“Keep telling yourself that, and I’ll keep telling myself that the next guy I date will be the one.” Duri rolled her eyes.
“Well, I guess you never know. I’ll be a lovely matron of honor at your wedding.”
Duri laughed at me. “See, you even still think of yourself as a married woman.”
Heat suffused my cheeks as I realized what I said. “Maid of Honor,” I corrected.
DD shook her head at me and refused to meet my eyes. “I think this is a mistake,” she whispered.
“Well, the only way I’ll know that is if I try.”
“You love Ridge,” she argued.
“I do and I always will, DD. We are divorced, though. Things are not the same. We’re more friends now than anything.”
“How can you say that?”
“He hasn’t even brought up the possibility of us getting back together.”
“Maybe he’s waiting on you to do it, since you’re the one who walked away. Did you ever think about that?”
