She cried in my arms for hours. Not quiet crying. Not soft sniffles. The kind of wailing that happened when your heart was broken into shards. She kept asking me why Mommy couldn’t come back. If she could call her. If she could go see her in heaven.
And I kept telling her the same awful truth.
I held her and rocked her and tried to be the solid thing she could cling to after her whole world shifted.
I was the rock. I was the anchor. I didn’t get to fall apart.
And in the middle of all of that … I forgot.
I forgot about Shelby.
I didn’t check my phone. I didn’t think about the time. I didn’t think about anything but my daughter’s sobs and the way her small hands gripped my shirt like she was afraid I’d disappear too.
When she finally fell asleep against my chest, her face red and tear-streaked, it felt like I’d battled a dragon and lived a lifetime, all in one evening.
It wasn’t until the next day that Caison asked me if I’d talked to Shelby.
“Why?” I said, distracted, pouring coffee.
“She texted me last night,” he said. “Thought maybe you’d been hurt or something. Said you didn’t show.”
The realization hit me like a punch to the gut.
Fuck.
I grabbed my phone. Saw the missed messages. Missed call.
I hadn’t just forgotten a date.
I’d disappeared on her completely. Again.
I tried to text her back.
Me: I’m so sorry. Something happened with Ruby. I’ll explain everything.
Undelivered.
I tried again.
Undelivered.
I tried calling.
Straight to voicemail.
She’d blocked me.
And honestly? I didn’t blame her.
Given our history, the fact that she’d agreed to go out with me at all was a miracle. I knew what I’d done to her. I knew the ways I’d let her down. So, yeah, maybe blocking me was a little dramatic, but she’d earned the right to protect herself from me.
So, I was giving her space.
For now.
Because if she thought we were done before we’d even really started, she had another thing coming.
The week that followed was one of the hardest of my life.
