I open my mouth to tell him —to shatter him even more, but the words don’t come out. How do you tell someone that has so obviously grieved their unborn child, that they never had to grieve? That they could’ve had that child all along, but time has been stolen by the stupid decisions of a young girl.
There was no way I could’ve known his mother was lying. Not really. Ryder always refused to talk about his past. But hindsight is twenty-twenty. If I had paid attention to the signs, had a little more wisdom, hadn’t been so afraid, I’d have known he would never tell his mother anything.
Every time he received a text or a phone call from her, he would be wound up for days. He would be moody and angry, and oftentimes, he avoided me so I didn’t get caught in the backlash.
I try again, but all that will come out are sobs.
With a heavy breath, Maddox finally speaks, and my chest cracks open. “She didn’t do it. She never had the abortion.”
Time stops. Everything around me moves in slow motion. Ryder stumbles back a step, looking like the weight he carries has just crushed him. Disbelief colors his features. Those hazel eyes grow dark and glassy. He looks as if he’s stopped breathing.
I know I have.
He shakes his head back and forth in denial. “No,” he looks at me with pleading eyes. “You wouldn’t do that. You wouldn’t keep that from me.”
“I thought you didn’t want him,” I whisper.
“Him?” It comes out on an exhale.
I drop my eyes, unable to stand the sight before me any longer. I nod my head as more tears fall.
“I saw him,” Maddox tells him. “When I went for food, I saw her with him and some other guy.”
“A guy,” Ryder hisses. “You’ve kept my son from me and let some other man raise him.”
I shake my head viciously. “No,” I exclaim. “That was my brother.”
“He looks just like you,” Maddox tells him. “I knew the moment I saw him, but his name would’ve given him away.”
“His name?” Ryder looks at me. “You named him after me?”
“No. I gave him the name you would’ve wanted him to have.” I tell him, praying he can find something good in this disaster.
His head drops. His shoulder knot and bundle under the tension. I can see it. I know it’s coming.
But I know just how wrong I am when he raises his head. I don’t know this Ryder. I know the boy who was broken but never told me. This is the man who’s been decimated and destroyed. Vengeance and fury blaze in his eyes. This man wants to destroy himself by destroying the world around him.
Starting with me.
“Let me get this straight. You ran away. You left me believing for nine fucking years that you made the unilateral decision, because no matter what you were told or believed it was a decision you made on your own, to abort our child. Except you didn’t do that. You decided to keep him, but never let me know. Then when he’s born you gave him the name I wanted him to have? Why? Was it to make yourself feel better? To appease the guilt you were carrying? Because you’re not fooling me, pixie. I know you. You might’ve believed my mother, but somewhere deep down you had doubts. You knew how I felt about you, and you knew that wasn’t something I did lightly.”
“I did it because I loved you,” I whisper.
“Bullshit,” he yells. “That is complete and total bullshit.”
“It wasn’t, Ryder.” I beg him to understand. To see this from the point of view of a very scared and hurt eighteen-year-old girl. From the point of view of a mother who, despite the lingering doubt, couldn’t take the chance of her son getting hurt by the rejection of his father.
“If you loved me, Heaven, you wouldn’t have believed the lies. You would’ve known the truth here.” He pounds his chest. “And what about all the years later? You never intended on me finding out, did you?”
“I didn’t want Tyler to get hurt,” I insist. “I couldn’t risk you hurting him with your rejection, but I did—”
“Get out,” he cuts me off with a growl.
“Ryder, please. Let’s talk this over.” I don’t want to leave things like this. Leave him like this. I move toward him, wanting— needing to touch him, reaching for him.
He grabs my wrist painfully, bringing me nose to nose with him. “You need to go now, or you won’t like what happens next. Only one other time have I wanted to hurt a woman, and right now, I wish I’d killed her that day. You don’t know what you did to me. What you’re still doing to me. You need to go before I do something we will both regret.”
He releases me with a small shove.
