“Yeah.” The chuckle that escapes me is a bit dark. “I’m finding that out every day. But the shitty thing is, I was on the path to getting better,” I tell her. “I was growing used to missing her and being without her to the point where I wasn't thinking about her every second of the day. But then Blue showed up with Megan, and now I’m spiraling again.”
“I know how that goes,” she says with a sigh. “Letting go the first time is hard enough, but the second time is impossible. What you’re going through now, I went through with Chris, minus the running away.”
“So there’s three?” I ask curiously, and she nods. “When’d you meet him?”
“Sometime after Cal left, I finally decided to move on with my life. But then Hilary came in with a newspaper from a small town near where she’s from. Chris and his dad were on the front page of it.” She pauses, tapping her manicured nails on her bottle.
“Even though I was resolved to let him go, once Hilary showed me that paper, I couldn’t let it go and sit back waiting on him anymore when I knew where he was.”
“So, when did you meet Collin?”
“A few months after I had Caylen.”
“Are all three of them as different as Alana, Megan, and Veronica?” I ask her, unable to hide my curiosity. Lauren laughs. “They’re drastically different, but they’re also the same. That’s what it all comes down to.”
I stare at her as I think back to all my interactions with her husband. Most of them are not good, but we’re making progress. “It was Chris at the hospital when you had the twins,” I ask, remembering how he fumbled with the bags he was carrying and the nervous smile on his face when he asked me to wish him luck. She nods. “And then I talked to Cal when Megan got hit by the car. And a few other times since after the incident at the gallery. And I just spoke to Collin today, right?”
“Close,” she says. “But you met Collin a time before that too.”
“When?” I ask her, trying to think of every other moment besides today and at the hospital that I’ve spoken to him.
“This interaction was a lot less pleasant. It was actually the first time you met him.”
It immediately clicks when she says it, and I don’t even try to question it.
“At the art show,” I say. “That was Collin? I would have sworn that was Cal.” I say, shocked.
“There was so much going on. It was at the peak of them battling. It was the roughest time I’d ever been through with him.” she says quietly.
“I met him at his absolute worst,” I state. “Makes sense.”
“Yeah,” she sighs. “Everything just went so wrong that night,” she says sadly.
“Trust me, if anyone understands, it’s me,” I tell her, trying to make her feel better.
“And he had an excuse,” I say with a shrug. “Some people are just assholes for no reason… that obviously wasn’t the case then. So it all started with Cal?” I ask her, trying to make light of the conversation, and it feels good to focus on trying to make someone else feel better than feeling sorry for myself.
“Yeah.” She says, a dreamy smile spreading across her face. “The confident playboy won me over, and then I fell in love with the rest of him… after I finally found out.”
I stare at her, wondering how she was able to go through all of that while being pregnant, twice, and once with twins. I’m barely holding it together without having extra hormones influencing my emotions. But now, she sits here, happily married with three kids, and they seem like they have it all figured out.
I wish I could just skip to this part; I want to be done with all of this back-and-forth bullshit. I’m ready for the day I have Alana and everything that comes with her.
“Ian.” Her soft voice breaks me out of my daze, and I realize I'm staring at her.
Embarrassed, I divert my gaze and take a sip of my water, trying to push the sudden swell of emotion down.
“I don’t know how this is going to turn out for you,” she says. “I didn’t think I’d ever recognize my own pain in someone else. But if Alana loves you as much as you love her, and if she’s anything like her brother, she’s not going to stop fighting to get back to you, ever.”
If I had to bet on anyone, it’d be my girl, but there’s a part deep within me that is still furious with her for not fighting for us before she left, for just walking away. Megan fought for her and Kameron. She didn’t resign and give in; it’s so at odds with the woman I fell in love with.
“I’m so worried about her. She told me any other time she left, even if it was just shitty letters. This time, no word at all, and it makes me think she didn’t go willingly. Especially after my cousin finding fucking…excuse my language, the camera’s in their apartment.”
She sucksin a breath at my words, and her eyes go wide.
“He didn’t?” She gasps.
“Veronica felt that something wasn’t right between him and Megan, and she wanted Blue to go check on her. And after all this shit with them falling off the face of the Earth, he felt like he missed something. He went back and found a few cameras. One in each room, basically. His sister said he did it so he could monitor when she switched and catch her leaving if she did.”