“What was the surprise?” I ask in my nicest voice.
“It’s not fair,” she says between sobs.
Knox picks her up and carries her to the couch. He sits down, cradling Piper on his lap. She looks tiny against his massive frame.
I’m not sure what to do. I don’t want to intrude on them, but I want to help them both. Neither are looking at me, Piper’s face is buried in Knox’s chest, and Knox is looking helplessly at his daughter. I end up perching on the coffee table across from them.
“What was the surprise?” Knox asks.
“I was following my dream,” Piper says. As she speaks, she looks at me.
My eyes widen, remembering the conversation I had with her a couple of weeks ago. She asked me if she should follow her dreams, and I said always. I was in too much of a rush to leave before Knox got home bother asking what that dream was.
“What dream?” Knox asks.
Piper dissolves into another fit of tears, and Knox visibly tenses even more.
“Avery said to follow my dream.” I flinch as Piper says my name. I’m officially a part of this.
“We should all follow our dreams,” I say quietly, my eyes on Knox.
He doesn’t react as I speak. I don’t think his body could get any more tense to begin with.
“Piper, you need to tell us what the surprise was,” Knox says, his voice strained.
I’m sure he thinks it’s a boy. At least, that’s what I’m thinking it is. Did he break up with her on the morning of the graduation? Is this was a young broken heart looks like?
“No,” she whispers.
“I mean it, Piper, What was the surprise?” Knox says, his voice stern.
“No! I said no I’m not telling you. I don’t have to tell you anything.”
“You don’t have to, but if you want us to help you, we need to know. Come on, sweetie, you’ll feel better to say it out loud,” I say, reaching over to stroke down her arm.
“What was the surprise?” Knox says again, his teeth gritted.
“She’s not coming,” Piper wails.
“Who’s not coming?” Knox asks.
“Mom,” she says.
My heart stops. I thought her mother didn’t have anything to do with her.
“What do you mean mom? Do you mean Grandma?”
“My mom. She’s not coming and I thought she was going to come and I, I…”
“What are you talking about?” Knox says, his nostrils flaring.
“Why don’t you start at the beginning,” I say, and take her hand. Knox runs his hand down her arm, and takes her hand from me.
“When Darla was here,” she says. Knox winces at Darla’s name. “She told me if I want to know the truth about my mother, I should look it up on the internet.”
“Not ask me?” Knox says.
“I do ask you, but you always say you don’t know.”
“Because I don’t.”
“But Darla,” Knox closes his eyes at her name, “said that everyone in the world is online, and if I really wanted, I could find her.” She pauses to swallow and wipe her nose. “And I found her, on Facebook.”
“What did she say?” Knox says, the tendons in his neck straining.
“I asked her to come to my graduation. Because Avery said to follow my dream, and that was my dream. For her to see me graduate.”
“What did she write back?” I ask, and Knox glares at me with daggers in his eyes, and I slouch.
“She didn’t. Until this morning, she told me to… to stop sending her messages and leave her alone,” she says, and dissolves into another fit of tears.
“You should’ve asked me,” Knox says to her.
“But Darla and Avery…” she says through an open-mouthed sob.
Knox’s face becomes stone and he swallows hard. He glares at me and says, “Weren't you leaving?”
My heart stops and my arms fall to my sides. He continues to glare into me, my skin burning under his eyes. My mouth hangs open, but his eyes continue to bore into me.
I don’t want to make a scene in front of Piper. But I want to defend myself, to not be lumped in with Darla.
“I didn’t know,” I say.
“It doesn’t matter,” Knox says, and wraps his arms even tighter around Piper.
Brushing a tear from my cheek, I stand. My knees are weak and my heart thumps all the way up in my throat. I want to defend myself. But Piper is still crying, and I don’t want to upset her further.
“I’ll come over after and help you get ready,” I say, my hand on Piper’s shoulder.
“I’m not going!” she yells, and I step back from them.
“I’ll see you later?” I say to Knox hopefully, but his attention is on Piper.
My heart shattering into a million pieces, I turn, stumble into the coffee table, and flee the house.
I can barely get the key in my lock, my hand is shaking so badly. Finally I get the door open, and stagger to my living room. Stunned, I collapse onto the couch and try to understand what happened. The whole time, tears flow down my cheeks until it seems like I’m crying just as much as Piper.
All day, I’m hopeful Knox will come to my door once Piper has calmed down. The closer and closer it gets to midnight, the more my hope drains. At two in the morning, all hope is gone and I make my way upstairs to bed.
The next afternoon, there’s still no word from Knox. He hasn’t been in his garage all day, but I tell myself that’s because it’s Sunday.
In the late afternoon, I work up the courage to knock on his front door.
Knox
No matter how much I tried to convince her, Piper refused go to her graduation. She said she told all her friends her mother was going to be there, and that it was too embarrassing to go knowing she wouldn’t be.
I kept saying she’ll regret it, that it was the only one she’d ever get but she didn’t care. She was too upset.
Piper spent the day either crying on my lap, the couch or her bed. She wouldn’t even watch Law & Order in the evening. Said she was too busy thinking of everyone having fun at the graduation dance without her.
Her heart is crushed.
And I wasn’t there to protect her heart because I was too wrapped up in my own enjoyment. If I hadn’t been spending so much time with Avery, maybe I would’ve seen signs Piper was searching for her mother.
If I hadn’t been so desperate to get some cock action, Darla never would’ve babysat Piper, and maybe she wouldn’t have got the idea to track her down in the first place.
I failed Piper.
I failed because I broke my own fucking rules, the rules I made to make sure nothing like this ever happened. It kills me that I can’t change the past, but the only thing I can do now is make sure it never happens again.
The rules won’t be ignored again.
There’s a quiet knock on the door, and I know it must be Avery. Anyone else would ring the doorbell.
Not wanting Piper to know Avery’s here, I open the door enough to stick my head out.
There are bags under Avery's eyes, and her normal perfect hair is flat against her skull. She’s beautiful.
I close my eyes for a moment, reminding myself what’s most important. Piper. Piper is all that matters. I can’t let her down again.
My teeth grit, remembering how I let her down in the first place.
“Can we talk?”
“There’s nothing to talk about. I said from the start absolutely no chance of a relationship. I got carried away, and it was stupid. Wrong.”
“But Knox,” Avery says, and lifts her hand like she wants to touch me. I move back, and her hand hangs in the air between us before dropping to her side.
“That’s the way it has to be.”
“Why? Why does it have to be that way? You’re allowed to have a relationship. You’re allowed to think of your own happiness.”
My eyes narrow at her. She doesn’t get it. Doesn’t understand how my job is to protect Piper from getti
ng hurt, and failed. Failed because I was too busy thinking of myself and my dick.
Failed because I let someone else get close to Piper, and wasn’t able to protect Piper against Avery or her friend’s bad advice.
“It does. I messed up on Piper, and I won’t let it happen again. I have to go,” I say and shut the door before I end up pulling her into my arms.
Avery’s muffled voice comes through the door, but I walk away. I go into the kitchen, where I can’t hear her. Piper is sitting at the table, a vacant look in her eyes and she stares at the iPad screen.
“You want to know about your mother? You should’ve asked me.”
“I do. You never tell me anything.”
“What do you want to know? I didn’t know her very well, and after you were born she left and I never heard from her again.”
Piper flicks around on the screen and shoves it in front of me. A Facebook profile of Brandi is on the screen.
“Is this her?” she asks.
I take the iPad, and scroll through a bunch of photos of Brandi. There’s a wedding photo, but it’s not the guy she left me for.
“Yeah, that’s her.”
“But why didn’t she want me? Why didn’t she want to come to my graduation?”
“Because she’s selfish and stupid. And we don’t need her.”
“But why?” Her eyes are wide with confusion, and I resist smashing the iPad against the wall and throwing the table across the room.
“Some people are selfish, and it’s hard for people like us to ever understand them. I’m sorry sweetheart, I really am. I wish there was something I could do, but I’m afraid the best thing is just to get on with living life.”
“But you don’t get on living your life. You never had a girlfriend before Avery.”
I push the thought of Avery out of my head. Piper is my priority.
Piper shakes her head, and says, “You must’ve really loved her.”
I can’t tell my daughter she’s the product of a meaningless bar pick-up.
“I never loved her. Trust me.”
“Then why did you have a baby with her?”
I don’t say anything while I try to figure out the right words in my head.
“Unless you’re saying I was an accident.”
“We were young, and it happened.”
“But if you didn’t love her, why didn’t you ever find someone else to love?”
“I did. You.”
“Me?” she says, smiling.
“Yes, Piper. You.”
My entire life has been about you. And if it wasn’t for me fucking up, we could’ve avoided the heartache and a missed graduation ceremony. How can I ever forgive myself for that?
Piper takes the iPad from my hands and closes Facebook. I smile, and stroke her hair.
I make a coffee, and sit at the table drinking it while Piper messes around online. She starts watching YouTube videos on hair and nails or something. I stare at the YouTube logo in the corner, thinking of Avery.
My throat tightens, but I force coffee down it to warm it up. My feelings for Avery don’t matter. I have to remember that.
“Is Avery coming for supper tonight?” Piper asks, looking up from the screen.
“Not tonight.”
“Tomorrow?”
“No. But I don’t mind if you go visit her at her house sometime.”
Piper’s mouth drops, and she stares at me wide eyed. I take a drink of my coffee and try to ignore her.
“Does that mean you broke up?”
That the phrase I swore to fucking God my child would never have to ask me. Not after all the times I had to ask my mother it. Not after all the times I got my hopes up, only to have it stamped out.
“Our life is just us. It’s always been the two of us, and it’s good that way, don’t you think? We don’t need anybody else, we have each other.”
She shrugs, unconvinced by my words. Maybe they would’ve been more convincing if I believed them myself.
“Want to play cards?” I ask, and reach for the deck of cards in the kitchen drawer.
We spend the rest of the afternoon playing cards, and the evening we clean up the supper dishes together and move to the living room.
I sit on the sofa, and Piper on the armchair. She starts a Law & Order. Life almost feels normal again. We don’t need Avery. I don’t need Avery.
Halfway through the episode, Piper says, “I miss Avery.”
I can’t lie. I was thinking of her too, her lips, her voice, her face, instead of watching the TV. I miss Avery snuggling up against me on the couch every night. She could be here in my arms, right now. If I was able to balance a girlfriend with a daughter. Which I’m clearly not able to do, otherwise Piper wouldn’t have missed her graduation.
How did I let myself get so wrapped up in Avery that I missed what Piper was doing? I failed to protect my kid. And lost the only woman I ever wanted more from than just her pussy.
I’m a fucking idiot.
Avery
It’s Monday afternoon, and I’m trying to work.
But how am I supposed to concentrate on my work, when I can see Knox out the window. He’s working on his car, in his shorts with no shirt on. His muscles glisten with sweat from the heat.
For a long time, I sit, paralyzed. Unable to take my eyes off him.
I never felt this bad after Nathan and I broke up. That wasn’t even a tenth as painful as the way I feel now. In the whole four years I was with him, I never for a moment cared about him as much as I care about Knox.
Everything was so perfect with Knox. Sleeping in his arms, waking up with him in me, nothing could get better. And then everything fell apart.
Without bothering to check my hair and makeup, I hit record.
“Hi everyone. I’m not doing so well today, as you can probably see. Right now I’m fighting for my unicorn. Not because of all that stuff I said before, about him being the most incredible lover imaginable, but because he’s the most incredible man imaginable. A man who’s willing to sacrifice his own happiness for someone else. But I don’t know how to make him see that he doesn’t have to sacrifice his life. That he can fulfill his responsibilities and still have me.”
Tears roll freely down my cheeks, but I keep talking, “I want him to know that I can even help him with his responsibility, that I want to help him. Because maybe I feel as strongly about his responsibility as I do about him.”
My throat is tight, and I pause to swallow. I can’t stop the words now. I don’t want to mention Piper in case he gets more mad. If he ever watches this, that is. The webcam is still rolling, and I look off to the left, where I can see Knox outside my window.
“Never in my whole life have I felt so comfortable or that I belong with someone so strongly. I don’t know. I know I normally have all sorts of advice to give you, but today I don’t have any. Today…” I stop talking and watch Knox out the window for a few moments.
“Today, I want to play a game with you. It’s called Would You Rather, and if you have kids, I’m sure you’re familiar with it. My question is, would you rather keep trying to convince the man who owns your heart that having you doesn’t mean hurting his responsibility, or would you rather step back, sit in your house, alone, and wait years for his responsibility to, to…” I can’t say grow up and finish high school. I won’t risk angering Knox.
“To end. And then maybe the two of you can try things again. Because I would wait. I’d wait forever for him.”
I grab a Kleenex and wipe my face, not caring that it’s on webcam.
“Maybe a couple of months ago, I would’ve told you that you have to be with someone for a long time, at least a year, if not more, in order for your love for them to develop and grow.” My mind is racing, and I realize this is why I stayed with Nathan for so long, I was always waiting for the love to appear. The real love that never came.
“But now, now I know that sometimes something is obvious from the start. When you’ve found the p
erson whose life you belong in, you don’t need years to figure it out. You just know. Your body knows, your soul knows. You just have to listen to it. But how do you get the other person to acknowledge it?”
I’m losing the ability to speak without sounding like a blubbering fool. I turn off the camera and sit at my desk.
It takes half the Kleenex box until I can see clear enough to attempt to edit the video. By that point, I’ve lost interest and post it raw and completely unedited.
I sit at my desk until I can’t take it any longer. It’s nearly six anyway. I grab two cold beers from my fridge and march out to his garage without checking my reflection in the mirror.
Knox’s head is buried under the hood of some old car, giving me a nice eyeful of his muscular ass as I walk up the driveway.
I take a deep breath, and say, “Hey. It’s hot out here, I brought you a cold drink.”
Knox grunts and keeps his head under the hood. Is this going to be like the first time I brought him beer all over again?
“I’m not going back inside until you talk to me. You may as well enjoy the beer.”
“Don’t make this hard, Avery,” he says, his voice gruff.
I step forward, and set a can on the engine. Knox sighs, and ducks out from under the hood. He takes the can off the car, but doesn’t open it.
“Can’t we just talk about it?”
“The fuck-buddy thing didn’t work for either of us, and I was crystal clear from the start that a relationship was never an option. There’s nothing else to talk about.”
“But how can you ignore your feelings?”
“Avery, no. It’s still no. It’s always going to be no. That’s the way it has to be.”
“Knox, I understand what you think you have to do, and be.”
“No, no you don’t. You don’t have kids. You’re not the one who spends your whole adult life trying to do the right thing.” His nostrils flare and his eyes bore into me, though his voice is soft, “And you’re not the one who dropped the fucking ball and let your little girl get her heart crushed.”
“That’s going to happen, everyone gets hurt at some point. It’s not your fault her mother abandoned her. How did you ever think you were going to protect her from that realization?” My voice is soft, comforting.
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