Free Unforgettable: Always 2 by Cherie M. Hudson Page B

her lips in a sad smile. “Every day I wanted you in my life. And not just when Tanner wouldn’t sleep or he was sick and I was covered in poop or vomit. On the day he was born I wanted you there more than I can say. To show you what you’d helped create. It hurt so much that I’d … I’d robbed that of you. The first time I held him, I saw you in him. Oh, God, Bren, I wanted you there so much I felt you in my very soul. And then, as he was growing up, there were days I’d ache to turn to you, to share him with you, to feel your hand on my shoulder as I blew raspberries on his tummy … The first time he sat up, I actually called your name, looked for you to share it with. The first time he crawled … his first step …”
    Something hot and tight twisted in my gut at her words.
    A tear trickled down her cheek. “But as those days passed, as too many days passed, I didn’t know how to do it. I didn’t know … and I was so scared you’d hate me, scared you’d hate us for destroying your life. If you didn’t know about your son, you couldn’t hate him, right? Better to not know about him than … than hate …”
    She slid to the floor against the door, a crumpled mess of broken sobs, and hugged her knees.
    I moved then. Toward her. In three strides, I was there on the floor beside her, folding her into my arms, holding her to my chest. “It’s okay,” I murmured against the top of her head, her hair cool and damp under my lips. “It’s going to be okay.”
    I accepted what I was doing was insanity. I accepted she’d shattered my trust in her, but I held her anyway. Because she was right. I am Brendon. I am the eternal optimist. I roll with whatever life throws at me, I see the joy in every situation life presents me. And life had presented me now with a future of infinite adventure and unknown excitement.
    A son. I had a son with the girl I loved and we would show him how wonderful, how amazing life truly was. We would do that. Together. Now all the secrets were out, we would take on the world and live. Truly live.
    I could do this. We could do this. We really were going to be okay.
    That’s what I thought at the time.
    What we think and what is real, however, doesn’t always line up.

A Lifetime of Dad Jokes
    I held Amanda. She wept into her knees for a long time before finally burying her face into my chest and crying. It felt like her tears were torn from her soul. As my shirt grew damp from their moisture, my own soul felt ripped. Sure, I was still angry with her. How could I not be? She’d denied me eighteen months of my son’s life. But I knew her. I knew she wasn’t a bitch. Keeping her pregnancy from me? Keeping the existence of our child from me? I believed her when she’d said it was because she didn’t want to ruin my life, my future.
    But holy fuck, what had it done to her life? How had it changed her dreams? She wasn’t a teacher now, with a classroom full of kids to guide and nurture. She was a mother, with just one child. Our child. She’d done that on her own. Alone. She’d been raising our child alone.
    How amazing was that? No matter how she’d torn me apart at the confession, how much strength must that have taken? To do that on her own?
    And now, on discovering I was a father, there wasn’t a part of me that wished it wasn’t the case. Not a part of me that thought, nope, I don’t want this. I don’t want to be a father . Not even the part that had planned a string of personal training centers all over Australia.
    We’d work through this together. Together. She didn’t have to do this alone. She didn’t.
    I held her, stroked her hair and told her over and over we were going to make it work. Promised her it was going to be amazing.
    The logistics of our new life together, the three of us, didn’t present itself to me as we sat on the floor. That didn’t worry me. We’d figure it out.
    Maybe marriage? Setting up a home in Sydney? I could still run my PT