Cole shakes his head and cries, his little body shaking with his silent sobs, and my eyes blur as I quickly pick him up and take a seat on his bed, placing him on my lap as he cries his heart out and regret fills me along with hurt, pain and anger.
“I was going to come say goodnight, but…” Dad’s voice trails off half an hour later, and I take a seat next to him on the patio steps, wiping my hand over my face to hide the tears I cried while my son slept in my arms after crying himself to sleep.
“Virginia is the one who told him everything,” I croak, my throat scratchy, “She went into his school, lied and traumatized him.”
“I know, Dirty is on it, son, he’ll find her,” Dad murmurs, and I nod, looking out into the yard, the gazebo Ash and I used to sit under with her curled up on my lap, a blanket covering us as we spoke about our days, hitting my eyesight.
I fucking miss those days and took them for granted.
“I didn’t fuck Virginia because I was sowing my oats, Dad,” I admit after a few minutes of silence. I feel him look at me but I don’t take my eyes off the gazebo and confess, “I was always picturing Ash when I was with her and not that it makes it alright but I only fucked her at most three times a month, no more than that. All the other times I wasn’t around and Ash was in the common room, I was outside the convenience store trying to figure out who my wife was having an affair with.”
“And the days she was working?” he questions.
“I sat outside the store waiting for her to show up for her supposed eight AM shift, but she never showed, always being there in the evenings,” I admit, and Dad sighs.
“I think I picked Virginia to use for affection, to envision my wife because I knew they hated each other. I knew she was a bitch to Ash in high school, and I wanted to punish her,” I continue, “For a whole year she only let me touch her four times overall and each time she would shower herself off. I felt the disconnect, the lack of love and fuck, it scared me. I didn’t want to confront her because then everything would be out in the open. I didn’t know if we both could come back from it because I know from experience right now, I cannot survive without her. I just had to hold my son who cried himself to sleep because of my actions, her actions…”
I drop my head and choke, “I feel so fucking lost, Dad. We should have another baby right about now like we talked about,fuck, we should be getting ready to try again, I mean, don’t get me wrong, I did feel a little resentment towards Ash and Cole because we never got to find ourselves. Getting married and having a baby before high school even finished, I resented Ash not being able to go to college, make better friends, giving us that time to miss each other but never did I believe I would find us here right now. God, she’s dating Dad, fucking dating.”
“You need to start doing pick up and drop off with Cole,” he states. I look at him and he nods and comments, “She needs to see you mean business, your son needs to see you mean business. When you gain her forgiveness because you will, you’ve loved each other for seventeen years, you always kneel before her, always prove to her she is your only one, that what happened won’t happened again and that you willbothcommunicate with each other instead of finding affection elsewhere because you’ve stopped giving it to each other.”
My eyes lock with his, and I question, “I thought you never agreed with her?”
Dad snorts and reluctantly admits, “No, son, I thought she was too sweet for you and I never agreed with you marrying her because I saw you had a wandering eye. You had the itch to try different things before settling down and as for your mama, some of the clubwhores claimed you stated Ash trapped you and when she heard you admit you wanted her to abort Cole. She instantly got it into her head that she was a patch chaser and well, right now, her opinion has changed and she’s trying to prove to Ash that she sees her as family.”
“Ashley doesn’t see any of the club as family, Dad,” I remind him.
Dad hums and replies, “I know, we all sat back and watched as you got yourself a mistress. Stood back and watched the trainwreck crashing around you and her and we all have a lot of making up to do as long as you both admit your wrongs,meaning she needs to come clean about her affair as well for us all to move forward.”
I swallow hard and look ahead and voice my fears, fears the brothers have also voiced over the past year and ask, “What if she never did have an affair, Dad? What if she was going through some woman shit and I took it the wrong way?”
“Then you fucking pray she forgives you,” he mumbles, and I drop my head.
If Ashley didn’t find a lover and I built it all up in my head because of my fucked up resentment, then never mind her forgiving me. I won’t forgive myself and will end up doing something bad, something very fucking bad.
Chapter 8
Ashley
I gently bite my nail as I sit outside the dean's office with several other students who don’t want to walk in graduation, waiting to see if we’ve actually passed. If we’re now qualified to go into the industries we’ve all chosen and damn am I scared.
What if I got a few questions wrong?
Crap, what if I got them all wrong?
What if I messed up at the farm this past year, considering everything that's been going on at home?
What if the past eight years have been for nothing?
I gently bounce my leg, my stomach tightening with worry, my mind going a million miles per hour. I can’t even call Ty like I would have done in high school when I was scared I’d failed a test and my mama was going to be pissed because we’re nolonger together. He chose another woman and I’m now dating a guy I don’t even feel remotely attracted to.
After dinner with Talen and lying through my teeth about being on my period, something he wasn’t too fussed about and actually wanted to still have sex, I managed to leave him with a heavy kiss good night. I spent the whole weekend Cole was with his dad, the first weekend where I didn’t get several messages about wanting to come home, only three this time, deep cleaning the apartment after finding a cockroach in the tub which is something I will not be telling anyone about.
I don’t need Tyler trying to get full custody of our son, I mean, years ago, I would deny anyone who would accuse him of trying. But now? I don’t know him because the man I married wouldn’t have had an affair. He wouldn’t have hurt me the way he did, instead he would have confronted me and I would have cried my absolute heart out as I admitted to being raped, to losing our baby.
He would have held my hand while I waited for these results.
Damn, what if I did really fail?
