Cry For You_A Second Chance Romance

by Shaniel Watson

  Fidgeting with his fingers and shifting around, looking at Jackson, he says, “I hit Garrett.”

  “There you go, he admitted it!” Mrs. Drake says.

  I stiffly say, “He’s not finished,” not looking at the overbearing pain in the ass. For Jacob, I soften my tone. “Why would you do that, baby? Tell the truth, I won’t be angry. All you have to do is tell me the truth.”

  “Promise?” His bottom lip quivers and his eyes glisten.

  Geez, at this point I don’t care what they want. I just want to take him out of this room of people doubting him before they’ve heard his side.

  He sniffs. “They were talking about the father-son game. Garrett said I didn’t have a daddy, so I couldn’t go. He said my daddy must have run away because he didn’t love me, and he was never coming back, because I was a crybaby sissy and no one liked me.”

  “Oh, baby.” I hug him to my chest, angry and sad, as tears run down his face. “Baby, that’s not true. You are so loved. Don’t you listen to that garbage.” He nods his head against my shoulder. My anger spikes when I look at the little brat and his harpy of a mother.

  “Mr. Kramer, that still doesn’t give him any right to attack my boy. Words are words, but fists hurt more.”

  Is she fucking kidding? I’ll show her what hurts.

  I’m about to unleash my rage when Mr. Kramer speaks up. “Mrs. Drake, that’s where you’re wrong. Sometimes words can hurt even more. They also leave scars.”

  “He’s lying! I didn’t say that,” Garrett speaks up with tears that I bet are as phony as his story of being hit first.

  “My son says he didn’t say it. I believe him. No one else has said any differently. The teacher saw him being attacked, and he admitted hitting Garrett. What’s going to be done about this attack, Mr. Kramer?”

  “Wait a minute, we haven’t heard from Jackson yet,” Landon says. “Depending on what he says, I think we’ll be closer to the truth.” Jackson’s eyes remain down, his arms around his mother’s waist. Landon kneels down, pulling him in front of him. “I need you to tell the truth, Jackson. It’s important. If you don’t, you understand that one of your friends can be in serious trouble for something they didn’t do, and that would be wrong. Do you want someone to be punished for something they didn’t do?” He shakes his head, eyes still cast down. “Jackson, look at me.” He holds his chin up, making eye contact.

  “No, sir. I don’t want that.”

  “Good. Did Jacob hit Garrett first?” He shakes his head no. “No? I need to hear you say it and tell me what happened,” Landon says to him.

  “Garrett said those things, and Jacob cried. He called him a crybaby and flipped paint on Jacob’s shirt with his paintbrush. I told him to stop it. But he didn’t, so Jacob threw paint on us. Then Garrett pushed him, and that’s when I threw paint on Jacob and pushed him. Jacob hit Garret in the face when he tried to sit on him.”

  “He just said my son was the victim of being punched in the face!” Garret’s mother says.

  “Yes, and my son was defending himself. He was not the first to hit either,” Bree says.

  They are not going to do this to him. “What it looks like is my son was being provoked and harassed, Principal Kramer. I’m not trying to make excuses for him hitting, but under the circumstances, with so many hurtful things being said to him, you can understand why he would lash out. If he’s going to be in trouble for defending himself against being bullied, I expect action to be taken against the bullies also. Let’s be fair.” I hold my head up, looking at everyone in the room, waiting for just one of them to say otherwise.

  No way am I going to let him be punished alone, when he was the one being harassed.

  “Jackson, next time something like that happens, I need you to tell the teacher. Do you hear me?” Landon says to him, standing. He nods his bent head yes. “Good, we’ll talk more about this later.”

  Principal Kramer starts in. “I believe I have the idea of what happened. Here’s what’s going to be done…”

  We stayed for another hour while Mr. Kramer gave a stern talking to the boys before allowing them to go back to class. He said since this was the first time any of them were in trouble, and because of their age, they weren’t going to be punished as long as they understood the rules we, the parents, would go over with them tonight. They apologized to each other and also to the art teacher.

  Mr. Kramer asked me to stay for a minute when Garrett’s mother was leaving and Landon was helping Bree. I didn’t even bother looking in their direction. He said he was sorry for what was said to Jacob, and they have a zero-tolerance policy for bullying. He would make sure the teacher keeps a closer eye on the situation. He’d also have a talk with Mrs. Drake. He was really quite nice.

  The last thing I wanted to do was see Bree and Landon when I got to my Jeep, but his truck was parked next to mine. I don’t have the patience for this right now, after what went down in there and back at the diner. Bree looks at me through the passenger side. Before I get to my car, he steps in front of me. The words come before he has a chance to open his mouth.

  “I have all the answers I need. You don’t need to say anything else.”

  “Listen to me, Lace.” He holds his hand up, blocking my way.

  “No.” I shake my head. I don’t need to hear any more. This is it.

  “Yes,” he snaps. “What happened inside doesn’t change us. It doesn’t change the way I feel about you or you feel about me. We can make this work. I’ll make it work. We’ll fix it all.”

  “Are you listening to yourself?” The anger I couldn’t show inside rises fully to the surface.

  “Lacey, I need you to listen to me. Don’t ruin this. Please, this can all be fixed.”

  No. No more trying to fix. I’m sick of trying to fix things. I’ve been fixing things for a long time. You know what happens if you keep trying to fix things that keep breaking down after the first fix? The fix is temporary, and after every fix, it’s never quite the same. It will never come back to its original state. Eventually, after one-too-many fixes, there has to be a change. And it has to be a change to something new. Something better, if there is such a thing as better.

  My lips tremble, and I shake my head. He knows what’s coming; he practically begs me not to say another word, pulling me into his arms. I can’t. I can’t do this with him. I can’t wait for him to leave me again. That’s what I’ve been doing, and I just can’t.

  “Lacey, baby, I love you. This is our second chance; we were meant to be. Believe in us. Don’t—Don’t ruin us without giving us a chance. Please.” I hold my hand against his chest.

  He holds onto my hand, keeping it in place, against the beautiful scrolling letters of my name. Over my forever that will never be. I try to find my suddenly missing voice. “We tried. And I can’t anymore.”

  “Just like that, you’re letting us go? No! You’re not trying.”

  “How are we going to be happy if our kids can’t be? We found our way back together because of them. Their friendship is now ruined because of us. Seeing him in there like that broke my heart. I realized I’m all he had in there. I was the only one who believed in him. There are going to be harder times ahead than that for him. I need someone who is going to stand up with us, fully, no matter who else is in the room. Not divided.”

  “Lace—”

  “Please let me go.” Tears roll down my cheek. “My mind is made up. You can’t change it. Don’t call me. Don’t stop by. Just don’t. You love me? You love my kid? If you want to make me happy…stop, please.” I wipe the tears away and try to keep from running past him.

  Jumping into my Jeep, there’s a loud bang that makes me jump. I realize it's his hand slamming against the top of his truck. I press my lips together in a muffled cry. I look up, and there she is looking into my eyes. His future, the one who followed after me all those years ago. His present wife.

  In her eyes, I see neither one of us is happy.

  “Hey.”
>
  “Hi.” I lay my head on the arm of the couch, mindlessly watching whatever is on the TV, while Shay sits next to me.

  “The world’s not over.”

  “It feels like it’s getting there.”

  “You gotta get it together for Jacob. You can’t let him see you this way.”

  “I know. I’m holding it together the best I can around him.”

  She puts her hand on my head, stroking my hair. “It’s not enough.”

  I also know this. “Why does it always have to be a struggle? Why does it have to be so hard?”

  “What?”

  “Life. When you think you just might conquer it, something else comes and knocks you down. I doubted that we could make it work. Then I thought we could actually do it. The second time around feels just as hard as the first. The first time I didn’t see it coming. This time I had doubts, but then things were going so well. I was happy. Happier than I’ve been in a long time—maybe since the day my life was ripped apart. I thought we could actually do it, rearrange history and right the wrongs. I was so mistaken.

  “I should have listened to you and mom. I should have listened, Shay. If I had, history wouldn’t be repeating itself. I wouldn’t be a crying mess. I wouldn’t have gotten Jacob’s hopes up—my God, Shay, I hurt him. It’s my fault. I was selfish. I knew the risks of getting him attached, and I still took it.”

  “I know you’re looking for understanding, Lace, but here’s where I get upset with you.”

  “Why, because you were right?”

  She shakes her head. “You are the most selfless person I know. You’re my little sister, but I look up to you and admire you so much. Your heart is pure love, and it shines with the love for your son. You wouldn’t do anything to hurt him. You took a chance on love the second time around because of your love for him. To give him something he was missing.”

  “Now it’s gone.”

  “It doesn’t have to be. He didn’t walk out this time. That’s fact. You deserve happiness, Lacey. Don’t doubt that. No one I ever met deserves it more.”

  “So what am I supposed to do?”

  “I’m not going to try to tell you what to do. Only you could know that. Your judgment, and yours alone, brought Jacob into our lives. So I won’t pretend to know better than you when it comes to real love and what matters.” She kisses me on the temple. “I’m always in your corner. No matter what.”

  Two weeks later, December. Many, many pies, and missed calls from Landon, and I’ve gained five pounds. I feel no better than I did before. No more tears, but I make myself look happy and sound happy. But…happiness seems a million miles away. I did something I never do: I cancelled my therapy appointment.

  Every four months, I go in. It’s like a tune-up for me. A quarterly check to make sure things are running right, not drifting off course without notice. I just don’t feel like talking and analyzing my problems. It was a major step, letting Landon back in my life, and I just don’t want to go there. I don’t have the energy it takes. I have a plan: focus all my energy on Jacob. Making him happy is the only thing I’m committed to. Making him happy is making me happy.

  I hum, putting the finishing touches on a Peekaboo Surprise pie. Landon’s favorite. I hum. But if I’m so happy humming, why the hell am I crying in the pie? Yeah, I need to reschedule that appointment. I’m drifting, and I need to get back on track.

  Midday in the corner of the bar, nursing the same fucking drink for two hours, poring over a stack of paperwork, but not making it past the first five pages, isn’t what I would call living your life to its fullest potential.”

  “Enlighten me, Trigg, what would be?” I sigh, not looking up from the paper I’ve been staring at for God knows how long.

  “I’m glad you asked, boss partner. Another woman.” He leans on the bar across from me.

  “How the hell would that help me? The last time I did that I ended up with a wife and a baby. Many years later, here I am, still trying to get over the same broken heart for the same woman. Life has changed and gone on, but my heart hasn’t. I fucked it all up again, man.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re a better man than me.”

  “Am I really? I fucking failed her, again.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me? If it was me, I would have fucked my way through so many women already, they’d be able to fill half a continent. Your problem is you’re a good guy who never got over his first and greatest love.”

  He’s right. I never got over her. And that’s a fucking shame for me, Bree, her, and our kids. Even worse because I don’t know how to let her go. The plain truth is that I don’t want to, no matter how much pain I’m in. The pain of letting go of even the memory of her, and what we’ve shared in this life, is much worse to me. That would be the greatest tragedy of our love, to me.

  My phone rings next to me on the bar. It’s Lacey. Holy fuck. My heart rises with hope and an ache for her that never goes away, whether we’re separated by time or space.

  Not letting another ring go by I answer, with the greatest of hope that she has found some way in her to take me back, to start again.

  “Landon, hi!” Jacob’s voice bursts through the phone, surprising the hell out of me.

  “Hey, buddy, what’s going on? Is everything all right with your mom and you?”

  “Ahhhmm…” he pauses, his voice hesitant and low. “It’s mommy.”

  “Jacob,” I say, getting off the stool to head over to Lacey’s, panic rising. “What’s wrong with mommy?”

  The next words out of his mouth are ones I’m not expecting to hear. The vulnerability and sadness blow me back down on my seat.

  “You made my mommy sad. You made her cry.”

  FUCK. I squeeze my eyes shut at the pain in his words. The disappointment and regret in myself.

  “I know I did, bud. I’m sorry.”

  “Then come back. You can make her happy again.”

  Dammit, I wish I could. But she asked me to stay away. I need to respect what she wants, as wrong as I think she is for asking me to stay away. From trying to fix this, no matter how amazing I know we could be together, no matter the pain it may cause. I need to respect what she wants.

  “Jacob, I can’t.”

  “Why? Did I do something wrong?”

  Goddamn it, he’s killing me. “No, never. This is hard, Jacob. It’s grown-up stuff you won’t understand…I can’t, Jacob, but maybe I can still see you.”

  The pause is so long I think the phone has cut off, until his voice cuts in loud and thunderously clear. Filled with anger aimed squarely at me, the man who inadvertently hurt not only him, but his mother.

  “NO! You’re just like my real daddy. You don’t want to see us anymore. We don’t want you either. Leave us alone! My Mommy doesn’t like you anymore, go away.” The line goes dead.

  “Jacob—GODDAMN IT!” I pound my fist on the wood, phone clenched in my hand in an attempt not to break it, ignoring the shooting pain.

  Trigg comes down from the other end of the bar where he was restocking. “What the hell happened? Is Jacob okay?”

  “Hell no, he’s not. I fucked up so bad.” I shake my head, feeling like the lowest scum on earth.

  “He just gave me the ultimate kids’ equivalent of fuck you.”

  “Brutal.” He pulls out the best top-shelf liquor we have. He comes around the counter slapping my shoulder, shoving me to my office. “You’ll need this for the midday mind fuck. Tell Dr. Trigg all about.”

  Which is how I ended up here, knocking on the door of the only woman I could ever truly love, and the one I hurt the most.

  Half-whispering, half-shouting. “Lace. Lace, Lace, let me in.”

  She opens the door with the cutest scowl. “What are you doing?”

  I slump against the door with the bottle in my hand and smile at her. God, she’s pretty. This pie robe is everything on her. Am I drunk?

  “Landon. What’s going on?”

  “I’m dr
unk-calling you.” I raised the bottle to her.

  She snatches it, telling me to be quiet before I wake her mother or Jacob. She hauls me over to the couch, where I collapse.

  Planting her hands on her hips, she looks down at me. “You drove in this condition?”

  “I walked.”

  Her lips raised slightly while she studies me. “That’s a long-ass walk for fresh air.”

  “It sure is. Since I’m here...” I look up at her, hair hanging loosely around her face, and as much as I know she’s angry at me, I know she cares. It’s all I can do not to reach out and touch her. My girl. I smile, touching the end of her hair, like I have the right to touch her.

  “You’re dipping into your product?”

  “It’s not cocaine. And I paid for it.” I lean closer, breathing in her clean, fresh scent.

  Her hands fall from her hips. I capture them, bringing her closer between my parted legs. Letting out a deep breath, she pulls a hand away, resting it on top of my head. I hold on tight, resting my head against her stomach.

  All I have for her is the truth. “I miss you. I’ve missed you for days. Weeks. Months. Years. Here I am missing you again. I’m sorry for failing you.”

  “Shh.” Her gentle fingertips brush against my scalp, sending strings of static electricity through me, warming me from the inside with her singular unique touch.

  My hand caresses her lower back with a need for her that will never go away, until the day I die. I slide my hands down the sides of her thighs, letting out a low, hungry growl for her.

  She strokes my hair, settling me with her gentle touch. “Shh. Don’t wake Jacob.”

  Always so caring and loving. “I need to say sorry. Tell him how sorry I am. I didn’t mean to—”

  “Stop. I know he called you. He snuck my phone away; I’m sorry. He shouldn’t have.”

  “He was right. I let you both down, because I couldn’t be enough. Lace…” I stop short, holding on tight. “I need you. I need you…” I breathe, like the desperate man I am.