doing that to me again?”
“How could I not? Where the hell have you been the past few days?” she says angrily, dark eyes flashing. “I’ve been calling you over and over and not a single response. I’ve been here before, don’t you remember? I do—after countless calls and texts and instant messages, you disappeared and never looked back, never checked in once to say hi. This looked like the same thing to me!”
We are beginning to attract attention.
“Let’s finish this in my car,” I say, unable to think of another place we can privately duke it out.
----
“ S o let me get this straight,” I begin as we settle in, “you were happy to let my dad pay you off to rip my child from me and tear my heart to pieces? Who the hell are you?”
“The woman you keep leaving behind, Brent! Look at it from my perspective for once—what evidence did I have that you were coming back to us? That you weren’t going to abandon me again? You’re a billionaire, and I’m only one of millions of women you could have. I had zero reasons to think you’d stick around, Brent. Zero!”
“It’s only been a few days—how could you consider doing something so momentous after just a few days?”
“Do you have any idea what it’s like watching Bianca get so excited about seeing you, then watch it get chipped away every day you don’t show up? A few busy days to you feels quite different in our household. She asks me all the time what time you’re coming and I can’t give her an answer because anything I say she’ll plant firmly in her mind and start looking for you, and I cannot bear to see disappointment on her face when you don’t show up whenever I say.”
“I deliberately didn’t tell her when I’d be back—I just said soon.”
“Yeah, you obviously don’t know a thing about kids.”
“And whose fault was that, me not being a parent? You took that away from me without batting an eye!”
“Oh, give me a break with the melodrama—I did more than bat an eye. You know how hard I tried to reach you back then, so don’t try to blame me! Brent, you really have some nerve thinking I owed you more than I’d already given. I was willing to give you everything and you threw me away like last week’s trash. I at least tried reaching out to you—what the hell did you do? You had to know there was a risk when you came inside me, yet you never even bothered to double-check! It’s your fucking fault how this went down, Brent—if I could have found you, maybe you would have known about Bianca sooner, so don’t blame me—blame the flaky, careless version of you.”
Shit. Well, she sure as hell had a point.
Why the hell didn’t I check back in at least once? I cared about her and I let myself get steered away from her in every way.
I often wondered how she was doing and I never even texted.
Even after Stacey and I broke up, I didn’t bother, and there’s really no excuse for that.
“You don’t think it looked like the old you had reappeared to me?” she continues, her voice softer, the quality of it a bit raw. “Here we are—you find out about Bianca, you tell her you’ll be in her life, yet she hasn’t seen you in days, and you wonder why I might have once felt that it was best for Bianca not to introduce her to you?”
Then she lets out a bitter chuckle. “Now she thinks you got lost again and pretends like she has accepted it. Then your dad suddenly shows up and offers me a chance to start over, to possibly wipe her memory of you—the flake. To cut ties and rebuild a whole new life that doesn’t involve you disappointing her over and over. I figured it’s still early enough and she still has a chance to get over you, regardless of how I felt.” She suddenly looks away. “You’d be amazed at the things you’ll think of doing on behalf of your kid,” she says quietly.
Nina is brimming with all sorts of emotions, and I feel like a total dick.
Underneath her anger, I sense that she still
“How could I not? Where the hell have you been the past few days?” she says angrily, dark eyes flashing. “I’ve been calling you over and over and not a single response. I’ve been here before, don’t you remember? I do—after countless calls and texts and instant messages, you disappeared and never looked back, never checked in once to say hi. This looked like the same thing to me!”
We are beginning to attract attention.
“Let’s finish this in my car,” I say, unable to think of another place we can privately duke it out.
----
“ S o let me get this straight,” I begin as we settle in, “you were happy to let my dad pay you off to rip my child from me and tear my heart to pieces? Who the hell are you?”
“The woman you keep leaving behind, Brent! Look at it from my perspective for once—what evidence did I have that you were coming back to us? That you weren’t going to abandon me again? You’re a billionaire, and I’m only one of millions of women you could have. I had zero reasons to think you’d stick around, Brent. Zero!”
“It’s only been a few days—how could you consider doing something so momentous after just a few days?”
“Do you have any idea what it’s like watching Bianca get so excited about seeing you, then watch it get chipped away every day you don’t show up? A few busy days to you feels quite different in our household. She asks me all the time what time you’re coming and I can’t give her an answer because anything I say she’ll plant firmly in her mind and start looking for you, and I cannot bear to see disappointment on her face when you don’t show up whenever I say.”
“I deliberately didn’t tell her when I’d be back—I just said soon.”
“Yeah, you obviously don’t know a thing about kids.”
“And whose fault was that, me not being a parent? You took that away from me without batting an eye!”
“Oh, give me a break with the melodrama—I did more than bat an eye. You know how hard I tried to reach you back then, so don’t try to blame me! Brent, you really have some nerve thinking I owed you more than I’d already given. I was willing to give you everything and you threw me away like last week’s trash. I at least tried reaching out to you—what the hell did you do? You had to know there was a risk when you came inside me, yet you never even bothered to double-check! It’s your fucking fault how this went down, Brent—if I could have found you, maybe you would have known about Bianca sooner, so don’t blame me—blame the flaky, careless version of you.”
Shit. Well, she sure as hell had a point.
Why the hell didn’t I check back in at least once? I cared about her and I let myself get steered away from her in every way.
I often wondered how she was doing and I never even texted.
Even after Stacey and I broke up, I didn’t bother, and there’s really no excuse for that.
“You don’t think it looked like the old you had reappeared to me?” she continues, her voice softer, the quality of it a bit raw. “Here we are—you find out about Bianca, you tell her you’ll be in her life, yet she hasn’t seen you in days, and you wonder why I might have once felt that it was best for Bianca not to introduce her to you?”
Then she lets out a bitter chuckle. “Now she thinks you got lost again and pretends like she has accepted it. Then your dad suddenly shows up and offers me a chance to start over, to possibly wipe her memory of you—the flake. To cut ties and rebuild a whole new life that doesn’t involve you disappointing her over and over. I figured it’s still early enough and she still has a chance to get over you, regardless of how I felt.” She suddenly looks away. “You’d be amazed at the things you’ll think of doing on behalf of your kid,” she says quietly.
Nina is brimming with all sorts of emotions, and I feel like a total dick.
Underneath her anger, I sense that she still
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