Chapter 0328
I wake up with Rowan spooning. Yesterday, for some reason, I couldn’t leave after he’d asked me to stay. I’d wanted to. I’d fought against it, but in the end, I’d lost. By the time I’d made. the decision to share the bedroom with him, he’d already fallen back to sleep.
His arms were tightly wrapped around my waist, almost as if he were afraid that I’d leave him. even in his sleep. In this position, I felt loved and cared for. I felt safe, and all my past hurts. just melted away. I feel his hot breath on the back of my neck, which just sends goose bumps all over my skin.
Being careful not to wake him, I slowly get out of bed. I needed to make sure that Noah was up so he wouldn’t be late for school.
I tip toe across the room and then silently leave our bedroom. After checking up on Iris, I head towards Noah’s room.
“Noah,” I call, but there wasn’t a need for that because he was already up.
He looks at me but doesn’t greet me. He just goes back to buttoning his school shirt.
“Are you still mad at me?” I ask as I cross his room and sit on his bed.
He stares at me, or, let me say, more like glares at me, but he doesn’t speak. I sigh, so sure that he was going to ignore me in the same way I’ve been ignoring his dad. I was about to stand up and leave when his hurt voice stopped me.
“I just don’t get it,” he all but whispers. “You know how much I dislike Sierra, yet you insisted I invite her or I wouldn’t have my party. Why? Why are you taking her side?”
The pain in his voice breaks my heart. I would never do anything to hurt my son, but I also knew that I couldn’t just let him not invite the girl.
“Come here, baby.” At first, I thought he’d ignore me, but he doesn’t. He comes and sits down next to me, albeit hesitantly.
“I’m not taking her side, Noah,” I answer his question.
“Then why did you insist I invite her?”
This isn’t something I ever thought I’d ever share with my son, but I didn’t have a choice. If I wanted him to understand, then I had to tell him the bitter truth of my younger days.
Taking a deep breath, I begin. “When I was young, around your age, I didn’t have a lot of friends. Most of the kids my age thought I was weird and not cool. I wasn’t bullied, but I wasn’t accepted either. Because most of them thought that I was weird and annoying, they rarely invited me to function. I was never invited to birthday parties or sleepover, those kind of things. It hurt every time others in our class got invites, but I didn’t. I used to cry every
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+15 BONUS
Those memories still hurt today. It was even more painful since I was a piranha, not only at school but also at home with my own family. As a kid, you don’t understand any of it, so I kept trying, and I kept getting rejected every time.
“Who are those kids? I’m going to find them and hurt them for hurting you. No one hurts my mom!” Noah’s outburst pulls me back from the painful memories.
He is angry, and I smile because he’s angry on my behalf.
I grab his hand and pull him to me. “It was a long time, Noah… The reason I insisted you invite Sierra is because I’ve been there and I know how it hurts to see other people invited to parties while you’re being excluded. I wouldn’t want what happened to me to happen to any child.”
He’s quiet for a while, and I hope that I’ve gotten through to him. That I’ve driven my point across. I love him so much, and I’m tired of the distance between us.
Synopsis
Ava: Nine years ago I did something terrible. it wasn’t one of my best moments but I saw an opportunity to have the guy I’ve loved since I was a young girl and I took it. Fast forward to years later and I’m tired of living in a loveless marriage. I want to free both of us from a marriage that should never have taken place. They say if you love something…. It was time to let him go. I know he’ll never love me and that I’ll never be his choice. His heart will always belong to Her and despite my sins, I deserve to be loved. Rowan: Nine years ago, I was so in love I could barely see right. I ruined it when I made the worst mistake of my life and in the process I lost the love of my life. I knew I had to step up in my responsibility and so I did, with an unwanted wife. With the wrong woman. Now she has once again flipped my life by divorcing me. To make matters even more complicated, the love of my life is back in town. Now the only question is, who is the right woman? Is it the girl I fell head over heels in love with years ago? or is it my ex wife, the woman I never wanted but had to marry?
