Searching for Neverland

by Alexander, Monica

  She shrugged. “I never thought I’d consider having an abortion, but I just don’t know if this is the right time for me to have a baby. Things aren’t exactly stellar in my life right now.”

  I swallowed hard and fought the urge to voice my opinion. Kids might terrify me, but if I was faced with an unexpected pregnancy, having the baby would really seem like the only option. I wasn’t sure I could ever bring myself to get rid of it.

  “Maybe you can talk Mom and Dad into giving you grandpa’s money before you turn twenty-five.”

  Our grandpa’s money had been split four ways between us kids, and we were each entitled to our share when we reached twenty-five – the age stipulation my grandfather had put in his will. I wasn’t sure if it was even an option for her to get the money early, but it was a good place to start.

  Taryn shrugged. “It’s not about the money. It’s about being a single mom and losing my freedom. It’s kind of terrifying.”

  I stroked her hair in an effort to calm her down. I could feel her starting to get agitated.

  “Tare, you have me. I’ll help you out, and I’ll babysit whenever you need me to.”

  She laughed. “Taylor, you hate little kids.”

  I pulled away from her. “I do not hate little kids. Tanner is the coolest kid I know, and you know I adore him.”

  She raised an eyebrow at me, and I sighed.

  We both new Tanner was an anomaly. He was one of the most laid back babies, and he was such a cool kid. He hardly ever got upset or cried or threw tantrums when he was little. I think it was because he had older siblings that he was always trying to emulate, so he was always more mature than most kids his age. And I knew most other kids weren’t like that at all.

  “Fine, kids freak me out, and they always seem to be able to smell my fear, but it won’t be like that with your kid. I’ll love it no matter what.”

  She chuckled and shook her head that rested on my shoulder. “I’d love to believe you, Tay, but I just don’t.”

  “Hmph,” I pouted, crossing my arms in front of my chest.

  She just laughed again.

  * * *

  I drove home from Taryn’s an hour later with a mix of excitement and hope and fear swimming in my stomach. I was excited that I was going to be an aunt. No matter what she thought, I’d be a really good aunt. I could handle kids in small doses, I could give them back when they cried or pooped or spit up, and I could buy them cool presents and spoil them if they were my relatives.

  Of course that excitement I felt also came laced with a fear that Taryn would choose not to go through with the pregnancy, which didn’t sit right with me. It was her choice though, so I hoped in the end that she did what was right for her. I’d help her get through it either way.

  “Hey girlie,” I said, as I answered my phone.

  I hadn’t realized it was on vibrate until I felt the buzzing on my lap and looked down to see it was Casey calling.

  “Tay, do you have a minute?”

  Damn, she sounded serious. What was with everyone today?

  “Sure, what’s going on?”

  She took a deep breath. “I saw Josh today.”

  “What? Are you in Atlanta?”

  She sighed, long and low. “No, I’m in Tampa.”

  “And you saw Josh?”

  “Yup,” she sighed.

  “You did? Are you sure?”

  “Positive. I was going to ask you if he was back, but I’m guessing since you thought he was still in Atlanta, you didn’t know he was here.”

  I felt my chest tighten as her words resonated through my mind. “I didn’t know he was here,” I said quietly. “He’s supposed to be coming back tonight.”

  “Tay, he’s back.”

  He’s back.

  My heart started pounding out an erratic rhythm. Josh was back in Tampa? Why had he lied to me? What was he doing back, and why hadn’t he been home?

  I thought I might be sick and contemplated pulling over on the side of the road.

  “Where did you see him?”

  “International Plaza. He was sitting at an outside table at The Cheesecake Factory with some punk girl with pink hair who was around our age and a little girl with dark brown hair.”

  My heart was racing now, and all I could think about was that girl Molly we’d met at the Liar’s Edge show, the girl Josh had slept with a few years earlier, but who was the little girl?

  “Okay, so what does that mean? Did you talk to him?”

  Maybe he was just friends with them.

  Or maybe he had a secret family that he never told me about.

  Did that actually happen in real life?

  “I didn’t talk to him, but I watched when he got up from the table. He ruffled the little girl’s hair and kissed the girl with the pink hair on the cheek.”

  My blood ran absolutely cold at the thought of what Casey had witnessed.

  “And you’re sure it was Josh?”

  “Positive. It was him. It was probably around one or one-thirty.”

  I swallowed hard, and my head started to spin. That was right around the time he’d called me. My call log told me the exact time was one thirty-four. It was no wonder I thought I heard restaurant noise in the background. He’d been at a restaurant. But it had been here in Tampa, not in Atlanta where I’d thought he was.

  He’d flat out lied to me.

  Chapter 20

  I waited nervously on the couch, not sure what else I should do to make the time go faster. Josh would be home any minute, and I was going to confront him. And I was freaking out about it.

  And a part of me was clinging to the hope that there was a really good explanation for what had happened and he wasn’t cheating on me. But I wasn’t exactly sure what that could be, and above all else, he’d lied to me, and that was infuriating.

  An old rerun of Friends that I’d probably seen fifteen times kept half of my attention, but the other half was on the front door. I was waiting to hear Josh’s key in the lock, and as the minutes ticked by, the quietness of the house and the canned-sounding laugh track from the television were starting to close in on me.

  Then five minutes before the show ended, I heard the front door open and my heart started to pound. At that point I was so sure Josh was going to break up with me that I had myself psyched out to prepare for the worst, and the tears I didn’t want to let fall were simmering just behind my eyes, waiting for me to give them permission to make an appearance.

  I didn’t get up. I just watched him from where I sat as he dropped a backpack he must have purchased in Atlanta, or maybe at the Dick’s Sporting Goods down the street since it was possible he’d never even left Tampa, by the front door.

  A wide smiled broke out across his face when he saw me, but there was a tiredness in his eyes that I could see only because I knew him so well. His smile also didn’t reach his eyes, and that spoke volumes to me. I gave him a small, half-smile back, and sat up straighter, steeling myself and just knowing he was about to lower the boom.

  He crossed the space between us, taking long strides toward me. Then he surprised me when he sat down next to me, wrapped his arms tightly around my stiff body and pulled me close, burying his head in my shoulder. I couldn’t help but return his embrace. It was like he was clinging to me like a life raft, and when someone is doing that to you, you can’t pull away. It would be like prying their grasping fingers from the raft and watching them float away. I loved Josh. I couldn’t let him drift, no matter how hurt and pissed off and confused I was.

  “It’s so good to see you,” he mumbled into my hair, as he tightened his grip.

  Then he pulled back and looked at me as if he hadn’t seen me in months. He started to go in for a kiss, but I pulled back and eyed him warily. I had no idea where his lips had been, and if he’d been kissing some other girl, I wanted nothing to do with him.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, searching my eyes cautiously, almost as if he was trying to ascertain if I knew his se
cret.

  I cast my eyes down, unable to look at him while I aired his betrayal. “Were you with Molly today?”

  “What? Who?”

  I looked back up at him, and the complete and total confusion in his eyes was apparent as they darted back and forth trying to figure out what I was asking him.

  “Molly, the punk girl from the Liar’s Edge show, the one you had two weeks of wild sex with a few years ago,” I reminded him, raising my eyebrows in question as he continued to look confused.

  Recognition suddenly dawned on his face. “No, why would have I have been with her?” He sucked in a breath as he realized why I thought that. “Oh. No, I wasn’t with her today,” he said tightly.

  “No?”

  He shook his head and cast his eyes down toward his lap. “No.”

  “Then who was the girl you were with at The Cheesecake Factory?”

  He looked up and met my gaze, squinting his eyes as he took in the steely look on my face. I wasn’t messing around, and he knew it. “You saw me?”

  “Casey did,” I said tightly, fighting every urge I had that was telling me to start crying, because he wasn’t denying anything.

  “I’m sorry, Tay.”

  I pulled away from him, scared that if I was too close, I might be tempted to hit him. “You’re sorry?!”

  He reached for my hands, but I pulled them away.

  “Don’t touch me.”

  “Fuck,” he hissed, as he covered his face his hands and slowly wiped them downward, as if he was wiping away what he’d done. I wished it was that simple. “Taylor, it’s not like that. You don’t understand.”

  “What don’t I understand? That you were cheating on me with another woman? That you have penchant for tattoos and dyed hair? That you have a child with someone?”

  Josh reeled back as if I’d slapped him, and I sort of wished I had. “A child? What? No! And, no I didn’t cheat on you.”

  I was sure my face was screwed up in an angry snarl, because I couldn’t comprehend why he was bothering to lie.

  He sighed loudly. “I need to tell you something.”

  Most dreaded words ever.

  The words ‘Are you breaking up with me?’ were right on the tip of my tongue, but I didn’t want to be that girl and be desperate. I wanted to handle what he was about to throw at me with grace and dignity and maturity. Then, later, when I was alone, I would cry and scream and throw things and curse him to the high heavens. But that would be later.

  “Go on,” I said tightly. “Get it over with. I know what you’re going to say.”

  “You do?”

  I shrugged noncommittally, my energy pretty much zapped at that point. It didn’t matter what he said, or what reasons he gave me, the end result would be the same.

  “I didn’t cheat on you, but I do have to move out,” he said quietly, and my chest started to constrict.

  I closed my eyes. “Fine,” I said, as I opened them and looked away, suddenly fascinated by the fibers of the carpet. He might not have cheated, but he was still breaking up with me.

  Dammit! Why did I enter into a partnership with him and then start dating him? I owned a fucking bar with him. How the hell were we supposed to do that now?

  “Tay,” he said, as he reached for one of my hands.

  I pulled away before his hand could close around mine. “Don’t.”

  “Please let me explain. I don’t want to do this, but I don’t see another option.”

  “You don’t have to explain, Josh. It’s fine. Whatever.”

  “No, I do have to explain. Why are you being like this?”

  I snapped back to look at him, my eyes flashing in anger. “Because I fucking love you, and you’re ripping my heart out with your bare hands.”

  “I’m not ripping your heart out. No one’s ripping anything,” he said, thoroughly confused, and then I was confused. “Tay, I love you, and me moving out has nothing to do with you or us. It’s just something I need to do.”

  “Why? Why Josh?” I demanded, wondering if he was freaking out on me and that was all this was. Maybe we’d gotten too close too fast.

  He sighed. “Because I’m getting temporary custody of a ten year-old and a five year-old, so I don’t think I can keep living here with you and two kids. I would never want to put that burden on you.”

  Excuse me?

  My jaw dropped. “You’re what?”

  My head was swimming with answers he wasn’t offering.

  Seeing the look on my face, he quickly said, “No, they’re not my kids. I don’t have any kids. They’re Jeremy and Carlie’s kids – Caleb and Savannah.”

  “Oh. Why are you getting custody of Caleb and Savannah?”

  He drew in a long, calming breath. “I’m their godfather, and I pretty much raised Savannah from the time she was born until she was two. And I visit them whenever I’m in Atlanta. They’re like a second family to me.”

  Yeah, I knew that.

  “Josh, I don’t understand. Why are you getting temporary custody?”

  He shook his head a few times. “Carlie is sick. She has depression, and she needs help. It’s pretty bad. See, Caleb had started calling me a lot more over the past few months, because Carlie has been getting progressively worse, and I didn’t realize to what extent, because every time I talked to her, she’d assure me she was fine and that Caleb was overreacting.”

  “That was why you went up there three weeks ago, wasn’t it?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, Caleb called me in panic because Carlie wouldn’t get out of bed. He said she’d been in bed for two days, and he didn’t know what to do. But by the time I got there, she was completely fine. She told me she’d just been sick, but I wasn’t sure I believed her, so I stayed for a few days. When she didn’t show any signs of going back into her depression, I left thinking everything was fine. But it wasn’t. I got that call last weekend when we were at dinner. It was from Jeremy’s sister, Melissa. She said Carlie was in the hospital. She’d tried to kill herself by taking prescription medication. Caleb found her and called 911, and the paramedics got to her in time, but she needs some serious help.”

  Jesus.

  “So you’re taking the kids?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. Melissa has three kids of her own, and her husband got laid off last month, so they can’t afford to take them. Carlie was raised in foster care, so she doesn’t have any family, and Jeremy’s mom lives in Oahu, and there’s no way I’m uprooting the kids to live in Hawaii for a month. I told Mel I’d take them.”

  “Is that legal?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, Carlie signed some papers that will allow me to take them for up to two months, but she’s only going into in-patient treatment for thirty days, and then she’ll see a therapist as a continuation of her treatment, but she’ll do it in an out-patient program, and she can have the kids back then.”

  Wow, that was more than I ever expected to hear.

  “Where is Carlie now?” I asked.

  “She’s in a facility here where she can get the help she needs. Melissa and I thought it would be best for the kids to at least be in the same city as their mom, so it made more sense to bring everyone here since it’s the summer, they’re not in school, and I can’t exactly leave the bar.”

  “So you were with Melissa today?” I deduced, feeling strangely relieved that the one thing I’d been so worried about wasn’t actually the thing I needed to be concerned about. This situation was so much bigger than Josh cheating on me.

  He nodded. “Yeah, we all flew in this morning, and Mel took the kids while I got Carlie checked in, and then I met them at The Cheesecake Factory for lunch. That’s when Casey saw me. Mel’s always been a little on the eclectic side, but she’s a great mom. She’s with the kids now in a hotel, and she’s flying home tomorrow, so I want to get everything settled. I’m going to look for an apartment and–”

  I held up my hand to stop him. “No.”

  “What?”

  “No, Josh that’s
stupid.”

  “I’m not following.”

  I sighed, not sure what I was getting myself into since I knew zip about raising kids. I just knew how to play with them, and even then the only kid I knew was my brother.

  “Hear me out, okay, but we have three bedrooms here. There’s plenty of room now that Allison has moved out.”

  Josh blinked a few times, as if trying to piece together what I was saying.

  “Just have them move in here,” I offered, trying to be clearer as to not elicit confusion. “It’s only temporary, right?”

  He nodded. “Right. Carlie should be in treatment for a month, six weeks tops, depending on the progress she makes.”

  “Then, it’s settled. They’ll move in here, and you won’t have to worry about finding an apartment that’ll be too big for you to live in alone after a month, and I won’t be all sad because you moved out.”

  He shook his head a few times. “I can’t put this on you, Tay. It’s a huge responsibility. Caleb and Savannah are good kids, but they’ve just been through something really traumatic, and you don’t even really like kids.”

  I threw my hands up, frustrated that everyone assumed that. “It’s not that I don’t like kids,” I said through gritted teeth. “I just don’t know many of them, and they sort of freak me out, but once I get to know them it’s fine. It’ll be fine, Josh.”

  I needed him to hear the conviction in my voice. I wasn’t going to settle for a different solution. Aside from the fact that I didn’t want Josh to move out, I also knew he wouldn’t be able to tackle instant fatherhood on his own, and I didn’t want to leave him adrift when he was going through something so huge. I knew how important Carlie was to him, and I wanted to support him through this, no matter how much it took me out of my comfort zone. It was what you did for someone you loved.

  “Are you sure?”

  I knew he wasn’t convinced I could do this with him. The hesitation in his tone was apparent.

  I sighed. “Let me meet them tomorrow, and if they hate me, you can move out and do your thing with them, but if it all goes well, I think we make arrangements for them to stay with us.

  He nodded slowly, and it looked like he was thinking things over. “It’s a lot to put on us,” he cautioned. “Are you sure you want to take a risk like this?”