I soften. It’s hard to stay angry at my mother. She’s so supportive and amazing.
“I will,” I assure her. “Thanks, Mom.”
I hang up the phone and look around. Now, finally, I’m completely alone, and I don’t have to speak to anyone.
And maybe I can finally figure out what I’m doing.
I slump down on the couch. I still can’t believe that I just had sex with Lyle. Damn it, I wish that he hadn’t come here, then I wouldn’t feel so conflicted.
I want to break up with him. Well, no, not so much want, but I feel like I have little choice. If Lyle can keep such a large secret about his own identity, then how will I be able to trust him in the future? No matter what he thinks his motivation was, omitting the truth like that is just incredibly wrong.
Though, honestly, I feel more hurt because I’ve been talking his ear off about my job with Energy Plus Co. Couldn’t he have found at least a single moment to say “Hey, I do some work at that company”? He’d still be technically hiding the truth, but at least that would have been better than just not saying anything at all.
So, no, I can’t stay together with Lyle under these circumstances. I can’t trust Lyle anymore. Maybe, in the future (and, hopefully, the near future considering I already have our child growing inside me) we can gain enough trust to amicably interact for the sake of our child.
Though…who would the kid live with?
I pause as I consider this. Lyle and I live separately and we both lead very different lives. Would we share parenting, with the kid at one house one week, and the other the next week? It would be like history repeating itself, considering what happened to my own parents.
Is that what Lyle and I have already become? A broken home? The kid isn’t even here yet, and we’ve already broken up.
Growing up, I didn’t class my home as broken. My parents were still polite to each other and they still did things together with me. Sometimes I even forgot that they were actually divorced, and there were never any step-parents or other partners to worry about.
Can Lyle and I be a family like that with this child?
I shake my head. I’m getting ahead of myself. I haven’t even told Lyle about the baby yet. Maybe he won’t even want it. Maybe I’ll end up raising it my myself.
Though, I haven’t even decided what I’m going to do about my pregnancy yet.
I lean back. It feels like I can’t make any real decisions right now. I don’t know what the right course of action is. I both want to break up with Lyle and don’t want to, and I suspect that it’s the latter that are my true feelings; no doubt I only want to break up because I’m mad at him.
Then there’s the baby. It’s Lyle’s kid, too. I need to at least tell him about it before I decide what I’m going to do.
There’s also my father to think about. As much as I don’t want him to be a consideration into my relationships, he is in this one, just because of who it is that I accidentally started dating. If my father ever finds out that I dated, however briefly, Lyle Thompson, he would be furious.
And if he found out a
bout a baby…
I grimace. No. I’m not telling him anything until I know for sure what I want to do.
Absurdly, I kind of wish that Lyle had stayed. Of course, that would have made breaking up with him much harder, but I could really use his thoughts right now. In everything I’m trying to muddle through, he’s prominent in every issue.
It’s too much. I don’t want to think about this anymore. My emotions are out of whack, my head is spinning and, on top of all that, I really, really want beetroot.
“What the hell is it with you and beetroot?” I groan at my stomach, where the tiny life is currently growing. “I hated beetroot, I’ll have you know.”
I sigh and haul myself to my feet. At least food is an easy thing to decide right now.
Chapter Seventeen
Lyle
“We need to break up. Sorry.”
This is the message I’ve woken up to. I’m staring at the screen, part of me thinking that I’m just dreaming and this is some sort of nightmare.
Yesterday happened, right? I went over to Amanda’s house, tried to tell her what was going on in my life and find out why she was so angry at me, and ended up having sex with her, didn’t I? I’m one hundred percent certain that I didn’t just dream all of that.