Love Ignited

by Jacie Lennon

  We both go quiet once I stop talking.

  “I’m going to go until you figure things out,” I say, pulling away.

  “Wait, Mason. That’s not fair. I’m not the one putting distance between us.”

  “Yeah, maybe not.”

  “Where are you going? To get more alcohol?” she all but snarls.

  “Yeah, sounds pretty fucking great right now,” I huff and grab my coat to walk out the door, doctor’s appointment forgotten.

  I know I’m imploding, but I can’t seem to stop it. My heart still aches when I think about it.

  After two more weeks, Ezra avoids talking to me at the station, and I steer clear of him. I fear that if I do talk to him, I will give in and ask how Jules is. But I can’t. I’m a mess, and she doesn’t need that right now. The baby doesn’t need that. Look how my mom screwed me up. I can’t do that to someone else.

  “Mason, my office. Now.” Dad’s voice pulls me from where I’m mindlessly helping the construction crew put the finishing touches on the coffee bar.

  The coffee shop should have been finished a month ago, but we had some issues with supplies and slow delivery, so here we are, about to have our grand opening a month late. The fucking grand opening. I know Jules will be there, and I have tossed around the idea of going and then not going. I don’t want to talk or explain myself. I know I’ve been a shitty person and boyfriend. If I can even call myself that anymore. I even missed her birthday.

  I trudge my way back to the office, bracing myself for whatever Dad is going to berate me for. When I sit in the chair across from him, we stare at each other until Dad finally sighs and leans back. He brings a pencil up to his mouth and clamps his teeth around it, almost like he’s holding himself back from saying what he truly wants to say to me.

  “Are you okay?” he asks, leaning forward and surprising me.

  I let a smirk fall over my face, my usual go-to when I’m trying to avoid emotion. “Just fine. Thanks for asking,” I say.

  He steeples his hands with his elbows on the desk. His pointer fingers tap together, and his eyes penetrate my face, almost like he can read my mind.

  “What’s going on with you and Jules? I’ve held off on asking for as long as I can. I know it’s not my business, but you both walk around in a daze. It doesn’t seem healthy or mature if you ask me.”

  “No one asked you,” I retort, knowing I sound like a petulant child but I can’t help myself.

  “Fuck, Mason, where is your head right now? You’ve never been like this. Do you know why the materials got here late? You put the wrong delivery date in. You are the reason this grand opening was pushed back, and that’s not like you. You’ve always been on top of everything. Your job at the station has suffered. I saw Ezra the other day, and he says you call in sick. When have you ever been sick?” Dad doesn’t move when he finishes talking. He just sits there, frozen, as if he can’t believe all of that came out of his mouth.

  “So, now, you want to be a dad?” I say before I can stop myself. I’m just digging myself a deeper ditch.

  The color drains from his face, and I feel bad but not bad enough to apologize. Grams would be horrified if she knew how I was acting. Too bad she isn’t here to see me anymore.

  “Look, Mason, I know I wasn’t the best dad when you were young. But I’ve tried to make up for it. That’s all I can do. I love you, and I want to do what’s best for you. I think, right now, you are going through some shit that you aren’t handling well. Maybe you should take some time off? Get your life straight. Get this situation with Jules worked out.”

  He’s right. I know he is, but I don’t have the energy to confront my issues. I just want another drink.

  “Have you talked to your mom at all? Do you think that would help?” His question makes my body freeze. “I know she’s still trying to get in touch,” he says gently.

  “How? Are you talking to her again?” I say gruffly.

  “Not a lot. She calls every once in a while to make sure you are still getting her calls, but now, I don’t know. You aren’t talking to anyone about anything.”

  I shrug and glance around the room. The hole I left in the wall is still there, and I see Dad staring at it when I look back at him.

  “Look, I’m not trying to tell you what to do. But it seems like you are in a tailspin, and I want to help you get out of it. You can’t keep coming into work, smelling like alcohol from the night before. I wouldn’t take it from regular employees, and I can’t take it from you. I’m here to talk, but you need to get your life together. You are a grown man now, and you need to figure this out for the sake of you and your child.”

  “I don’t think I can be a parent,” I tell him.

  He doesn’t show any surprise. “Have you talked to Jules about it?”

  “No, I’ve been avoiding her.”

  “I gathered that when she asked to be on a shift when you weren’t here,” Dad says, his hard look telling me how he feels about the situation.

  “How is she?” I ask before I can stop myself.

  His eyes widen a little before returning to their almost-angry stare. “I don’t think you get to ask that. I thought I raised you to be a better man than me, a better man than one who would walk out on the mother of his child.”

  “Maybe I’m just the product of you and Mom. The spittin’ image … isn’t that what people always say about us?” I don’t know what has gotten into me. I don’t usually spew such antagonistic things to anyone, much less my dad.

  A flash of regret covers his face, and I feel it cover mine too. I shouldn’t have said that.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.” I sit back with a huff.

  “You need to talk to your mom, you need to work this anger out, and you need to make things right with Jules. Don’t make the same mistakes I did.” Dad stands to his feet and holds his arm out, dismissing me.

  Fuck it. I’ve put this off long enough.

  I stand and walk out the door. I’m so angry. I know Dad’s right, and that makes me even angrier. I quickly take off my tool belt and fling it onto a table by the coffee shop before stalking outside to my truck. I climb in and rest my forehead against the steering wheel. I’m at war with myself. I keep making excuses about why I shouldn’t talk to my mom, but I know that I will finally start to heal if I do. And damn it if I don’t need some healing. Even Grams told me I should.

  Groaning, I sit back up, slamming my head against the headrest. I pull my phone out, and after a few minutes of staring at the black screen, I swipe it open and type in the number that Dad gave me a while back. It’s been stashed in the console of my truck, just waiting for me. Hitting the button, I wait, my heart racing while the ringing blares in my ear.

  “Hello?” The feminine voice that comes across the receiver steals my breath away, and I panic. “Hello?” she asks again. I can hear the confusion in her voice. “Mason?”

  “Hey,” I finally say.

  There’s a small beat of silence. My hand is clenched around the phone so tight that I’m afraid it’s about to shatter into a million pieces if I don’t relax.

  “Mason, hey.”

  After years of thinking about what I would say to my mom if I had a chance to talk to her, I can’t think of any of it at this moment. I’m drawing a blank, so I clear my throat to kill time.

  “How are you?” she asks.

  I regret calling. How am I? Not fucking good—that’s how I am.

  “Can we meet?” I grit out.

  Her response is immediate. “Of course. I’m home, and I would love that.”

  I nod before realizing she can’t see me. Flexing my fingers, I close my eyes.

  “Okay. Do you want to meet at your house?” I ask.

  “That sounds good,” she answers a bit tentatively.

  “Send me your address,” I say.

  She quickly rattles it off before laughing awkwardly and telling me she will text it to me.

  “Are you coming by right now?” she a
sks.

  “Yep. See you soon, Mom.”

  This could be the best or the worst decision of my life. The jury is still out, but Dad is right. I need to talk to Mom and get my shit together. I’ve held on to these feelings of not being adequate enough and not wanting to put another human through what I went through. Maybe talking to her will help me work through my past so that I can finally be in a place to have the best future with Jules and with our baby.

  This past month, I’ve been a horrible person, and I’m ashamed to look at myself in the mirror most days.

  My phone chimes with her text, and I plug in the address, ready to get this over with.

  Mom already has the door open and is standing on the front steps by the time I pull into the driveway. Her house is huge—or her husband’s house, I should say. I’m not quite sure how she managed to reel him in. I’m not sure of anything. Grams only had a few old pictures of Mom from right when I was born, and it looks like she hasn’t changed much.

  My mind instantly goes to my brother, and I feel the blood drain from my face when I think about having to meet him too. I sit, frozen, in the truck, staring at her as she looks at me. I can see the agony on her face, but I steel my heart. She has a lot of explaining and groveling to do.

  When I climb out of the truck, I shiver, maybe from the cold winter air or from seeing my mom for the first time since she left. She starts toward me and then stops, waiting for me to get to the steps. When I do, she wraps her arms around me. I freeze as she hugs me, the feeling of her arms around my body as unfamiliar as the woman in front of me. She quickly steps back once I don’t return the hug and looks at me, tears welling in her eyes. I’m strangely not moved by her show of emotion. Normally, I would feel awkward or worried for a woman crying in front of me, but I’m merely apathetic at the moment.

  “Oh, Mason. I can’t believe you are standing here.” She reaches her hand out toward me but pulls it back before making contact. “Let’s go inside,” she says as she brushes a finger under each eye.

  I’ve yet to say anything; my mouth feels too dry to form words. I glance around as I step through the door. The house is painted a warm, inviting color, and the plush carpet beneath my feet bounces with each step. Family pictures litter the walls. I don’t look at them too closely. I know I will only see what’s missing in them. Me.

  Once I throw my jacket over the back of a chair, I take a seat at the table. Mom bustles around the kitchen, looking much like the domesticated housewife, and my heart aches for my younger self.

  “What would you like to drink?” Mom asks as she looks over at me and catches me staring.

  I blink a few times and shake my head. “Whatever you’ve got is fine.”

  She sets a glass of sweet tea in front of me and sits down across from my chair, her hands wrapped around her glass of tea.

  “I didn’t know that you lived this close.” I glance around, my eyes finding a large backyard out the kitchen window.

  A yellow lab lies in the yard in the only patch of sunlight gracing the brisk April day.

  “I didn’t always. I met Grant in Arkansas, and we had an opportunity to move here a few years back.” She shrugs before taking a nervous sip of her drink.

  “Why now?” I lean forward. “Why did you not try to get in contact with me sooner? What’s changed?”

  I watch as her eyes shut, and she releases a deep breath.

  “I’ve thought about contacting you for a while now. I’ve wanted to know you for so long.”

  “Really? You could have tried a little harder to contact me. You could have not left in the first place.”

  “I know.” She hangs her head, but I don’t feel bad for what I said.

  I glance at the wall next to me, a picture hanging on it shoving their family dynamic right in my face. She notices me staring at it and sighs.

  “You have a brother, Reid.” She points at him in the picture as if I couldn’t tell that he was her son.

  “I know. Dad told me.”

  She nods, and my hand clenches around my drink.

  “Where is he?”

  “School. He graduates this year.”

  “So, is he your do-over? You didn’t want me, but you still wanted a child?” I cock my head to the side, my heart racing.

  “Oh God, no, Mason. I was … I was so young when I had you. And I wasn’t where I should have been in life. I have so many regrets.”

  “What regrets? Like how you picked drugs and alcohol and a life of freedom over me and Dad?”

  Her posture wilts as her shoulders sag down, and tears brim in her eyes.

  “My very first memory is sitting in Grams’s lap when you and Dad left, crying. I still remember it to this day,” I say, trailing a finger through the condensation that has pooled on the table underneath my tea.

  “I regret that I picked myself over you. I regret that I left with your dad and that, when he returned, I didn’t. I regret not being there to see you mature into the handsome young man you are today,” she says, her eyes filling with warmth as they look at me. “I regret not knowing who you are, who your friends are. Your favorite movie or favorite color. I don’t know if you had pets or if you can draw. Can you sing? I have so many questions about your life, and I’m so sorry I let you down, let your dad down. I was so selfish and consumed with what I wanted, and I truly didn’t know it until I had Reid. When I had him, I was so overcome with hatred toward myself that I fell into a dark place, Mason—”

  “Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?”

  “No, you aren’t. But this is part of the story. I started seeing a therapist, and I’ve figured out that I can’t go the rest of my life without trying to make this right, trying to ask for forgiveness for the awful thing I did to you. I’m so sorry, Mason. So sorry.”

  We stare at each other. My face stoic and hers wet with tears and snot. I narrow my eyes at her and try to rein in my warring emotions. It won’t make either of us feel good for me to yell at her, but I want to right now. I’m not sure this was the best idea to come here.

  “I have a child,” I say before I can stop myself. I don’t know why I said it. Maybe I’m trying to connect to her on some level.

  Her mouth opens and closes before she blinks at me. “You do? Nick never mentioned …”

  “The baby isn’t here yet,” I say. At that moment, I’m surprised with how much I want to know if it’s a boy or a girl. “I thought that maybe it would be better if it didn’t know me. I thought that maybe if there was a chance I could be like you, I should leave before the child is even born. But I see now that I could never be like you. I can’t make someone feel like they aren’t worth anything. I can’t try to sit here and justify to a child later on down the road why I chose not to be in their life. I can’t do it.”

  I take a big gulp of air when I realize I haven’t been breathing. That’s my truth. I was so scared that I would end up leaving that I left anyway. I’ve been the biggest asshole, and I don’t deserve Jules or the baby, but I have to try. I have to make things right before they can’t be made right anymore. I can’t waste another minute with Jules thinking I don’t want her or our child because talking to my mom has made me realize that it wasn’t my fault she left. And I don’t want it to be my fault that I left my own baby.

  I stand abruptly, shaking the table and making the tea slosh out. Mom rises too, shock on her face.

  “I’ve got to do something. Being here with you has made me see that I can choose. I can choose whether to stay or go, just like you could have. I choose to stay. I’m going to be the best damn parent to that child even though I didn’t have the best role models in that department.”

  Her mouth falls open, but she doesn’t say anything.

  “I’ll be back, and we can continue this later. I’m going to be the adult in our situation and try to accept however you attempt to make amends, if only for the fact that I have eighteen years to make up for with a new sibling.” I grab my coat from the back of the chair
and face Mom.

  She nods, and this time, when she attempts to hug me, I wrap my arms around her as well. I’m not in a great place with her, but I think we could try to salvage whatever is left between us. And I have hope now. Hope for a better future with my child.

  32

  Jules

  It’s been a long month of doctor visits, working at the bistro, and trying not to think about Mason. I don’t know why my brain insists on reminding me of him every five seconds when all I want to do is forget he exists.

  You are a pathetic loser, I tell myself every time I want to give in and call him.

  I should be angry with him, and I am, but I also feel sadness for the pain he has inside him, pain I can’t fix.

  I’ve been staying in Hanna and Ezra’s spare room since Mason stopped living with me. I finally decided to serve Kyle a restraining order after he refused to leave Nashville and go home. He had convinced himself that I wanted to be with him. He wasn’t too happy about it, if his multiple phone calls, voice mails, and texts to me were any indication. I’ve found a few notes taped to my apartment door when I’ve gone over to get things, and I shove them in my purse and get the hell out. He’s definitely violating the restraining order, and I feel like he won’t stop. My adrenaline rushes through me when think he is watching me.

  A knock sounds at the front door, and Hanna gets off the couch to go answer it, leaving me propped up on a pillow and wrapped in a blanket, watching TV and trying to ignore the loop my brain continues to play of my fight with Mason a few weeks back.

  “Hey, Jules,” Hanna says, leaning across the back of the couch, a frown on her face.

  “Yeah?” I rise slightly to look at her.

  “Mason is here.”

  “Why?” I scrunch up my face in confusion.