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My eyes widened as I looked the man over again. It had been twenty-five years, but I still recognized him. He was older and much more muscular than I remembered, but it was him. Griff. Griffin Anderson. My ex-husband and Chloe’s absentee father.
“Griffin?” I gasped in shock.
He gave me that crooked smile that made me fall in love with him way back when we were assigned as lab partners junior year of high school. My traitorous heart sped up.
“Hey Dawn,” he said casually. “How have you been?”
I stormed over and smacked him on the chest. A chest that was much harder than it used to be. I couldn’t believe he’d just walked in here and greeted me like we saw each other last week or something.
“How have I been? How have I been? How dare you ask me that after being gone for twenty-five years? What are you even doing here?”
Before he could answer I heard Chloe behind me.
“Mom? Is everything okay?”
I closed my eyes and opened them again, hoping this was just a dream. Nope. The husband who’d abandoned me and our two-year-old child never to be seen again was standing here in my restaurant, looking at our daughter with a face filled with conflicting emotions.
“Chloe?” he whispered, his voice like ground glass. Even after all this time, I knew him well enough to know he was trying to choke down his emotions.
Chloe looked between us curiously, then adopted the professional voice she used with customers.
“Yes, I’m Chloe. Have we met?”
Griffin flinched, then looked at me for help. I ignored him. He’d made this mess, he could deal with the consequences. He cleared his throat.
“I’m Griffin.” He cleared his throat again. “Your father.”
Chloe’s face turned white, and she started to sway. Griff and I leapt into action, easing her into the nearest chair. He kneeled in front of her, watching her carefully as I kept my hand on her shoulder in a show of support.
“I’m sorry Chloe, I guess I shouldn’t have just blurted that out without any warning.”
Our daughter shook her head. “It was just a shock. I mean, we haven’t seen you for as long as I can remember.”
Since she was two, to be precise.
Griffin had been my first great love. Well, if I was being totally honest, he’d been my only great love. Until it all fell apart...
After meeting in chemistry lab, Griff and I had dated all the way through junior and senior year. I’d been a social butterfly, playing softball and cheerleading and writing on the yearbook team, while Griff was tall, lanky, and quiet. We couldn’t be more opposite, but somehow we’d worked.
We’d been each other’s first, and while we’d been careful, thanks to a condom malfunction I’d found myself pregnant at eighteen. Our parents had been furious, and we’d wound up getting married the week after graduation, succumbing to their pressure to “do the right thing”. My dreams of college out the window, I’d worked as a waitress at a local restaurant, and Griff had gotten a job at the hardware store. It was hard, but we made enough to afford a tiny studio apartment where we lived with Chloe.
I’d thought we were a team, until one day when we were twenty. Griff came home from work and told me he was leaving.
“I love you Dawn, but I’m dying here. I can’t spend the rest of my life in this boring town working retail and struggling to afford a crappy apartment. We’re too young to live like this. I want to be free. I want to see the world and have adventures.”
“What are you saying?” I’d felt the blood rushing in my ears.
“I’m saying I want a divorce. I’m sorry, Dawn, really I am.”
He handed me a manilla envelope. I looked at it blankly, completely in shock. I’d had no idea this was coming. I knew things were hard, but wasn’t that how it was for all new parents? I’d naively thought our love was enough to get us through the hard times.
“I took care of the papers.”
“Papers?” I’d asked blankly.
“The divorce papers.”
His words were a stab to the heart. I felt my eyes fill with tears as I struggled to take a breath.
