I don’t know if I can be as forgiving as Mom, not right now. I feel like my blood is boiling. When I think about all the chances that Lucie has had to speak to me, over the last five years, and now since I’ve been back, and she hasn’t, I feel sick with rage. The only excuse is that I’ve somehow managed to get it all kinds of wrong. If I’m not Logan’s father that will be fine, but if I am…
“We will have time to make up for all the lost time anyway,” Mom continues. “I would love to have him as a grandchild, he’s a great kid. Actually, maybe it would be a good thing to have…”
“Mom, just stop.” I can’t listen to this. “Don’t get carried away, we don’t know anything yet. I need to speak to Lucie directly before we plan for anything. And that’s exactly what I intend to do right now.”
I jump up and I storm from the room, needing to calm down this thumping sensation inside my entire body. Now the happiness has gone, but I still need to speak to Lucie. This time, I won’t leave until I find out the truth once and for all. I shouldn’t have dug around, but she’s got some damn explaining to do.
30
Lucie
I don’t feel as good as I should this morning, I feel all off kilter. I know that it should be a good thing that me and Kade finally hooked up, but while this secret is still hanging over my head, I can’t relax. Today, somehow or another, I’m going to have to find a way to tell him and I’m sacred as hell.
I watch Logan playing on the carpet as cartoons flicker on the television behind his head. My poor little boy is about to have his world shaken and he doesn’t even know it yet. Because once Kade knows, eventually I’m going to have to tell him as well. This is the father who has always been away on business. He likes Kade, sure, but I don’t know how he’s going to take that information. It’ll be a shock for sure.
Knock, knock. I don’t even acknowledge the door, if it’s the post man then Mom will get it. I have my head filled with other stuff today. I have to work out how to reveal my biggest secret. Urgh.
“Lucie?” Mom calls, forcing me to get up after all. “Lucie, can you come here please?”
I move towards the front door to see Mom with an incredibly worried face. When I spot who’s behind her I can understand why. Kade is glowering with rage, which scares the shit out of me. Maybe he knows, maybe somehow someone has told him. Not that anyone knows, so that shouldn’t be possible.
“Are you okay?” Mom mouths desperately at me. “Do you need me?”
“Erm, Logan is in the living room…” I reply loudly. “If you don’t mind…”
She leaves me and Kade behind and he continues to glower at me. This is bad, it’s really bad. I don’t like it one bit. I’m going to have to take this conversation far away from Logan. If this is what I fear it’s going to be, and I’m not going to get to do this in a calm and considered way, then we have to do it privately.
“Do you want to come up to my bedroom? So, we can have a talk, or whatever?”
He doesn’t answer me, but he follows me inside. We walk up the stairs in a thick stilted atmosphere, my heart racing painfully in my chest the entire time. I can feel the hate burning off of him hard. He definitely knows, he really does get it this time, which is utterly terrifying. It makes me all cold inside.
Once inside my bedroom, I close the door behind us and I turn to face Kade. I fold my arms across my chest and I wait for him to yell at me. He doesn’t, but his face does turn a funny shade of red as the rage consumes him. It’s almost as if he’s so wrapped up in his anger that he doesn’t know how to let it out.
“I’m sorry, Kade,” I try. “I never meant for you to find out like this, I didn’t want…”
“So, it is true then?” he demands. “It’s true. You know if I didn’t reach out to Rhiannon then I never…”
“Wait, stop! Rhiannon? Who do you mean by that? My friend from college? That’s so invasive…”
“Well, you weren’t going to tell me!” He’s indignant, like he doesn’t get what he’s done.
“I was going to tell you in the right way!” I explode. “In my own time. I know this is big news, but that’s why I wanted to do it right. I wanted to check that you really were more grown up now before I said…”
“Oh, so you might not even have told me? I could still not know now? If you didn’t deem me good enough?”
This isn’t going as I want it to or not, but right now I’m too fuming to care. He went behind my back and spoke to someone that I haven’t talked to in years instead of coming directly to me. Yes, he’s asked a bit, but not about himself. I never would have lied if he did. I couldn’t have done that to him.
“Why did you ask Rhiannon? She doesn’t even know anything. She never knew I was pregnant.”
“No, but she told me when you left and it wasn’t long after me and that was enough for me to start working stuff out.” He yanks his hands through his hair and gives me a desperate look. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I tried.” I throw my hands in the air in despair. “I really did try to do so but I couldn’t. I couldn’t get hold of you, you were gone. You have already left the country by the time I found out, what could I do?”
“You could have told me! There were ways. There were always ways. This is something that I would have wanted to know. Was I not good enough to find out? Yes, I was immature, but still.”
“It wasn’t like that, I was trying to protect you, I wanted to protect Logan too. I was young myself.”
“Argh!” he yells out in frustration. “I cannot believe this. I can’t believe that this is happening. Of all the things that I thought might happen in my life, I didn’t expect this. And I never thought it of you as well. I didn’t think that you would ever be the sort of person who would keep something like this a secret.” He gives me a look and it’s one of pure hate. He actually seems to despise me which makes me shudder. We’ve gone from telling each other that we’re in love, all the way to hate. “I can’t believe that you did this.”