Bring Me Back(64)

My phone buzzes in my purse and I reach over and grab it.

<b>Ryder: I’m not sorry for kissing you. Maybe I should be but I’m not. If you want an apology I won’t give it to you. You’re the first woman I’ve kissed in nearly two years. It meant something to me. You mean something to me.

</b>I place the phone on the seat beside me and clutch the steering wheel. I need to hold on to something. My eyes close and I breathe out through my mouth.

My feelings are all over the place. I—

The baby kicks and my breath stutters.

I haven’t felt the baby kick before now. I’ve felt little flutters I thought might be something, but not this. Not a full-blown kick where it’s like the baby is saying hello. I press my hand to the spot, hoping to feel it again.

“Hi, Little Girl,” I say, my voice thick with tears. “Mommy loves you.” And I do, so much. Even if I feel like my life is falling apart around me, this baby is everything that I want. She’s keeping me going—keeping the hope alive. I rub my hand against my stomach, trying to coax her to kick again, but she doesn’t. It doesn’t matter, though. That one kick filled me with so much joy. The joy is fleeting, however, because like always the sadness soon accompanies it. The sadness that Ben’s not here to experience this.

He’s not here.

Our baby is growing inside me.

And I’m kissing someone else—and liking it.

What the hell is wrong with me?

I press the heels of my hands to my eyes. I can’t escape these complicated thoughts. Maybe I never will because there’s nothing easy about my situation.

Finally, I know I can’t sit in the car any longer.

I head inside and my mom’s working on a crochet project—she said she wanted to learn so she could make things for the baby—and my dad is parked in front of the TV per usual.

“Hey,” I say, trying to act normal.

“How’d it go?” my mom asks, lowering the … whatever it is she’s making. It looks like a knotted mess to me, but what do I know? “You’re back early.”

“It was fine,” I say, trying to sound normal. I fail. Epically. I can’t keep it together and I begin to cry.

“Oh, honey.” My mom cries and jumps up. She hurries over to me and pulls me into her warm, comforting arms. How I ever thought I didn’t need her here is beyond me. I do need her. Every single day—and selfishly, I don’t want them to go back to Florida, but I know they need to even if my mom still insists on looking into moving back here. “What happened?” she asks. “You’ll feel better if you talk about it.” She guides me to the couch in the front living area so we’re away from the raucous of the TV.

“H-He kissed me,” I admit, my lower lip trembling. “And I didn’t stop him. I liked it,” I confess on a whisper. I sink down on the couch and place my head in her lap. She runs her fingers through my hair. The gesture both comforting and familiar.

She’s quiet, and I know she’s thinking over what she wants to say. Finally, she speaks. “It’s okay that you liked it,” she whispers.

I shake my head in her lap, my tears soaking into her soft jeans. “But Ben—”

“Blaire,” she says sternly, “he’s gone. He’s not coming back. But you … You’re here. Living and breathing with a life. One you have to live. You’re allowed to move on. To love.”

“It feels wrong,” I reason.

“You can’t end your life because he’s gone, B. He wouldn’t want that for you, and I think on a deeper level you know that. Ben never held you back from your dreams or what you wanted while he was alive and he wouldn’t want to do it dead, either.” I swallow thickly at her words. She continues, “I’m not saying that you need to ride off into the sunset with Ryder. You still need time, I know that, but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give him a chance.”

I understand where she’s coming from, but it’s hard for me to let go. I think this small part of my brain still believes one morning I’m going to wake up beside Ben and all of this will have been a bad dream. What’s different now, though, when I have that thought is I automatically think of Ryder and how much I do care about him. I don’t want to live in a world where I don’t know him.

I’m torn between two men.

One a ghost, and one very real.

“I’m scared.

“I know you’re scared,” she says softly, still combing her fingers through my hair, “but don’t miss out on something great because of that. The greatest things in life are usually the scariest—but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do them.”

I close my eyes, absorbing her words. “Are you saying I should go talk to him?”

She laughs. “I don’t know. That’s up to you. What does your heart say?”

“That I should go talk to him.” I laugh lightly. “I just ran away from him. I want him to know that I liked it, but I … I don’t know.”

“Then go.” She urges me up and I move to a sitting position.

“Right now? What if he’s not home?”

“Then wait for him,” she reasons.

I nod. “Okay, I will.”

I don’t hesitate. I know if I do I’ll talk myself out of it.