My frown tugs my brows low, “Why?”
“Curious.”
“Well, it’s none of your concern, Kolt,” Hackles raised, I push up from the couch to start putting away the toys I hadn’t managed to get to earlier, “He is your concern.”
“I can’t care about the mother of my child?”
“To some extent,” I shrug, “What said mother eats is not part of that.”
I throw a handful of building blocks into the toy box, pushing back hair that needs a wash, “And for the record, I eat. Everyday.”
“I just wanted to make sure you were taking care.” He comments.
My teeth grind together, “It’s none of your concern but if you must know, I have breakfast and dinner, it’s not much but I eat and I exercise. It’s been nearly three years since you saw me, I am older, I’ve carried and birthed a child and my body has gone through so many damn changes since then. Don’t come back here and expect the same girl you left behind, that girl isn’t here anymore.” I snap, “My body and my eating habits are none of your concern and I didn’t invite you over for you to make comments about such.”
I see him visibly wince before he nods and goes back to feeding our son.
“I’m going to run his bath,” I grumble, storming out of the room.
Who the hell does he think he is!?
I plug the bath and add the oils and bubbles before I collapse onto the edge, resting my elbows on my knees so I can cradle my face in my hands.
How did life go from normal to this in just a day!?
God, I want to cry. And scream. And eat so much ice cream I feel sick from all the sugar. I haven’t felt this emotional since my third trimester, and boy was that messy. I cried over everything, had the patience of a lion with an injured paw and slept so much I could have hibernated.
It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this unraveled.
With the bath ready, I test the water and then shut it off, pushing down the riot inside of me to go back downstairs and face him.
Chapter Twenty-six
My boy talks quietly to himself, happy little words that make no sense or even a sentence. Seeing him was like the first breath after being under water for too long, like he’s always been a missing piece of the puzzle.
He has his mothers eyes, and nose but Ness is right, he looks like me, with his dark mane of hair and low brows. He’s rosy cheeked and happy and I guess that’s all I could have hoped for.
It physically hurt when my eyes first laid on him, seeing this tiny bundle made up of me and Ness. My throat had stung and eyes watered and what ifs flowed through my mind. What if I didn’t leave? If I’d been there to hold her hand when she went through the hours of labor? What if I got to hold him for the first time when he was born?
I’m not so used to having feelings at all, not when I’ve stifled them as much as I have over the past few years, and all these intense emotions feel as if they are crushing my chest.
“Red truck,” Ethan points to a picture in the book I have open for him.
“That’s right, baby boy,” I say quietly, “Just like Uncle Torin’s.”
He doesn’t react to my brother’s name but then I suppose that should be expected.
I hear Vanessa’s light steps moments later and glance up as she reenters the room. Try as she might, she can’t hide from me and the pain I caused her is written all over her face. I don’t know why I didn’t expect the hostility from her.
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” I tell her when she stops a few feet away.
She drops her eyes to the floor, “I’m sorry for snapping,” She replies with a sigh, “I just don’t know how to handle this.”
I just wanted to make sure she was taken care of, that she had everything she needed. “I’d like to be a part of his life,” I change the subject because I didn’t want to deal with the sting of her rejection again.
I haven’t come to rekindle whatever it is we had.
Any chance of me and her, in her eyes, was gone. I did that.
