Something soft tugs on my pant leg, and my head snaps down to the beautiful pair of fairy-green eyes staring back up at me and her adorable space buns she demands I put her hair in every morning.
“What’s up, sweetie?” I ask.
She pouts. “Park.”
My smile falls as I look back out the window. It’s been weeks, and she still asks to go to the park. It’s not just going to the park that she wants. We usually meet up with her friends at the park multiple days a week. Sometimes, it’s Judy and Rian. Sometimes, it’s Dr. Madison and her daughters, Willow and Wynter. Sometimes, it’s Ollie and Colin. However, I know it’s Ollie and his son that she wants to see so desperately.
I hate the disappointed look she gives me every time I’ve had to tell her no over the past several weeks. Oliver Doyle stopped answering my phone calls a month ago, and I’m not the only one who feels abandoned. She feels like I’m the one keeping her from the people she wants to see, but it’s not that way at all.
If she needs to think I’m the bad guy here, that’s fine. It’s better than her thinking that someone just stopped wanting us around. I’m strong enough for both of us.
I knew the day I met Oliver that he was most definitely the bad guy, but I just didn’t think he was a bad guy like this. He ripped out my heart the first day he stood us up, and he’ll continue to rip hers out until she forgets he and Colin ever existed.
“Not today, Francine. Not today.”
